Archive of Our Own ^beta

Scar moved in on a Sunday.

He had seen the house before, obviously, once to look at it, once to buy it, and once to decide his floorplans. Several of his boxes were already there, filled with old knick-knacks from his house, courtesy of Impulse and Skizz.

The house was still bare and unlived in for now, but Scar was set on changing that. He heaved his boxes inside one by one; he brought them to the kitchen, to the living room, to every corner of the house he planned to make his home.

Home sweet home. Almost.

The sun was shining through the window. The dust was no longer settled on the countertop. His house keys and envelope were sitting beside the sink, and a Star Wars keychain was attached to the metal ring. The flowers were sitting peacefully by the windowsill, their yellow petals golden in the sun.

Scar was humming a cheerful tune, setting his last box— the one labeled Star Wars Figurines— on the shelf.

There. Now it was home sweet home.

Scar would be quite happy here. He was sure of it.

~~~

There was a human in her house.

Obviously, it wasn’t her human. It might not even be a human at all, if Jellie looked closely enough. It was human-shaped, but more fog-colored than human-colored. Any passing resemblance to her human could be put down to coincidence.

Jellie hadn’t figured out what exactly it was yet, but it probably wasn’t human.

The not-human had been there from her very first day, peering and perching on boxes like it thought it was some sort of bird. Which it might be. A very odd, very human-shaped bird.

It was watching her.

Jellie watched back.

The not-human-bird-thing looked away. Could it see her?

When she looked back, it was watching her again. Yes, she decided. Like all the humans she has observed— which weren’t that many— this not-human could see her too. How interesting. She would have to keep a closer eye on it.

Whatever it was, her own human didn’t seem to notice. He was humming to himself, unpacking the boxes he could reach. If Jellie looked close enough, her human seemed to phase through the not-human-looking-bird. Except it always dodged out of the way, as if he could physically touch it.

Perhaps it wasn’t dangerous.

Hmm. Jellie would be the judge of that.

~~~

Grian was bored. So, so bored.

There hadn’t been a human who had stepped foot in this house for months, let alone lived in it. There had been no one he could mess with, no one to eavesdrop on, no books or games or anything at all.

He supposed it was partly his own fault. After all, he had probably been the one to scare all of them away.

But still. Did he really deserve those endless months of boredom? Absolutely not.

There wasn’t much he could do now, he supposed. He had done it, he had reaped the consequences, and now it was all over with. There was a new person in his house, bright-eyed and sunny-smiled, along with his cat.

It hadn’t even been a day yet, and Grian was already bored with them both. The human was busy doing whatever moving in entailed. The cat— Jellie, he thought its name was— was content to curl up on the windowsill, utterly ignorant of the world around it.

Not too much unlike his own cats, all those years ago.

This one was different, though. If Grian didn’t know better, he would’ve said it could see him. But that was impossible. A human couldn’t see him, let alone a cat.

His one miracle, squandered away on a cat. Grian had loved his own cats, but really, he wouldn’t want his one conversation partner to be either of them. And as if it wasn’t bad enough that his only miracle couldn’t even speak, it seemed to despise Grian too.

It was watching him now, even. How could a cat even look that suspicious?

In another world, being able to communicate with a cat might have been interesting. But this one just had to be inseparably attached to its owner. The owner who hummed cheerful tunes and bustled around the house and didn’t notice a thing Grian tried to do.

So the cat just stayed on the windowsill, doing absolutely nothing.

Wonderful. Wonderful.

It had only been a few days by the time Grian had absolutely given up any chance of messing with the cat. It was a shame, really. He had had so many ideas. They could have enjoyed a life of messing with the human together.

Not much he could do about it now. No, if Grian couldn’t bother the cat, he wouldn’t give it the satisfaction of knowing it had won. He hadn’t given up, he had simply… gotten distracted.

With the human. Yes. That was what he had to do. If there was going to be a human in his house who didn’t pay him rent, it was only fair that he could mess with the human just a little. And even if it was just to spite the cat, that was exactly what Grian was going to do.

Grian would beat that cat in the end. It would never see it coming.

~~~

If it hadn’t been an undeniable fact before, it certainly was now: there was a ghost living in Scar’s house, and it was messing with him.

There was a sign left outside his bedroom door. Scar was sure he hadn't put that there, and he definitely hadn’t written on it.

Scrawled across in faint, barely-legible script, was a tiny message, complete with a smiley face.

I see you :)

That wasn’t ominous in the slightest.

“Do you now?” he said aloud.

Silence. Scar wasn’t sure what he had expected.

“So? Is there a little ghost in my house?”

Again, silence. Not even another sign. Scar had to admit, he was a little disappointed. This was the prime opportunity to prove there were ghosts and make millions. Provided this really was a ghost, of course.

Scar heaved a sigh, long and perhaps overly dramatic, but it seemed to do the trick.

When he wheeled back into his bedroom, he could hear the quiet clatter of another sign falling to the ground behind him.

behind you

“I figured,” Scar said. “Where are you?”

If he could hear the perhaps-ghost, he thought it would have scoffed.

“Alright, alright, dumb question,” he admitted, holding his hands up in surrender. “Better question: what do you want from me?”

A beat.

I want to see this house burn, the next sign read.

Scar blinked. “Absolutely not. It’s my house, you know? It was quite the expensive house. Afraid I won’t be burning it down anytime soon.”

The ghost didn’t respond. A moment later, Scar swore he could hear bells ringing somewhere in his living room, but by the time he wheeled his way over, they had gone silent.

When he looked back, the signs were gone. The bells were ringing again. Jellie didn’t even react.

She was curled up on his lap, looking up at him with wide, perfectly innocent eyes, unbothered by the potential existence of ghosts. Lucky cat.

“I’m not making this up, am I?” He looked down at Jellie. “You’ll tell me if there’s a ghost, won’t you?”

Jellie yawned. Scar chose to take it as a yes.

“Good, good,” he said. He looked around at the still-empty living room, glaring at whatever spirit that might or might not be there. “Listen here. This is still my house. No more messing around with signs or bells, alright?”

He got the feeling he was talking to the air. Well, whatever. Jellie wouldn’t tell. And if there did happen to be a ghost in his house, which he couldn’t find out anyway, then—

Hang on a moment.

Why couldn’t he find out whether there was a ghost in his house? Given modern developments— although admittedly, Scar wasn’t keeping up with developments in ghost catching— he was sure it was possible.

And even better: he had an expert.

Right, where was his phone? He had a call to make.

~~~

“So,” Impulse said, hovering at the doorway, “you said there were ghosts?”

Scar beckoned him over. “Mhm. Ghost, singular, really. One that sure likes messing with me.” He gestured to a plant pot in the corner, only just set upright again after the last time the ghost had knocked it over, soil still scattered around its base.

Impulse blinked. “Alright? And you want me to…”

Just tell me I’m not going crazy, Scar had said over the phone. And while there probably wasn’t much Impulse could do if he really was going crazy, Scar had called anyway. After all, Impulse wasn’t called the ghost-hunter for nothing. If ghosts really did exist, Impulse would be the one to find them. Scar was sure of it.

“I could run a few tests,” Impulse offered. “I could probably get you a spirit box, if that’s what you’re after.”

“The thing you use to speak to the thing, right?” See, he had listened to Impulse. Once or twice, at the very least.

Impulse shrugged. “Close enough, yeah. You want one?”

Scar furrowed his brow. “What if it doesn’t want to talk to me?”

As if on cue, the plant pot toppled over again, crashing to the ground with a deafeningly loud bang. When Scar glanced over, he only saw Jellie, sitting innocently by the poor plant.

“Dude,” Impulse said, eyebrows raised, “I think you might be wrong there.”

Scar threw up his hands. “See? I’m not going crazy, right? It’s a ghost right there.”

“You do have a cat,” Impulse said, entirely unhelpfully.

“Sweet baby Jellie would never,” he said vehemently. “How dare you even think that. Nope, definitely a ghost, case closed. Right?”

“I’m gonna be honest with you,” Impulse said, peering at the corpse of a once-beautiful plant pot. “You might actually be right there. How ‘bout I go find Skizz, then we figure this all out together, yeah?”

Scar leaned back. “You do that. I’ll just, uh, wait here. With Jellie. And the ghost.”

Impulse clapped his hands together, grinning. “Give me fifteen.” He was already halfway to the door. “We’ll catch that ghost!”

“You’re excited.”

“It’s my first ghost!” Impulse hollered back. “Oh, Skizz will love this.”

True to his word, Impulse was back within fifteen minutes, carrying an armful of equipment and followed by his fellow ghost-hunter. Less than fifteen minutes, if Scar was counting. He and Skizz bustled back into Scar’s house, bright-eyed and brimming with excitement.

“A ghost, huh?” Skizz said. “Man, that must be cool. Wish we had one.”

“No, not cool,” Scar said. “It’s a ghost. A dead person.” Skizz’s enthusiasm was not dampened in the slightest. “Fine, fine. Call it cool. What do I do?”

Impulse and Skizz directed him in helping them set up the equipment, which ended up consisting of a mirror, a few salt lines, and a box. This was the infamous spirit box, apparently. It wasn’t the prettiest— far from it, actually— but he hoped it would do.

And so there they were, crowded around an unassuming remote-looking mess of wires and metal. Skizz was off to the side, busying himself with recording equipment and whatnot, while Scar and Impulse huddled around the spirit box.

Impulse flicked it on. “And now we wait.”

It only took a second for the spirit box to flicker with green light, and only a second more for the speakers to start crackling.

Impulse rubbed his hands together, leaning closer to the spirit box and tugging Scar forwards. “Here we go.” He glanced at Scar. “You wanna ask a question?”

“A question?” Scar echoed.

“A spirit box is for talking to the ghost,” Skizz called. “Give it something to talk about.”

“Anything?”

A beat. Scar was almost expecting the perhaps-ghost to issue some sort of complaint about that— that sort of behavior would certainly fall in line with all of Scar’s past roommates. But there was nothing.

“Anything,” Impulse said at last. He nudged Scar’s leg, vaguely reminiscent of a cat. “Go on.”

“Um,” Scar said eloquently. “Do you like Star Wars?”

Skizz barked a laugh. “Star Wars? Really? Buddy, is that really the best you can do?”

“You told me I could talk about anything!” Scar protested. “And I like Star Wars. So we’re talking about Star Wars, case closed, no more discussion. Let the ghost speak.”

Again, the ghost said nothing. Scar was about to finally have his sigh of relief when—

“What the hell is Star Wars?”

What. What.

That certainly hadn’t been Scar and it hadn’t been Impulse. Nor was it Skizz, whose movements had stilled to silence behind him. And unless there had been a break-in— which there hadn’t— or Jellie had suddenly acquired the powers of speech— which he was relatively sure she hadn’t— that had been a ghost.

The ghost.

There really was a ghost living in his house.

Scar blinked. “What in the world?”

“They’re real,” Impulse breathed, sounding far too surprised for a man confident in his ghost-hunting abilities. “Scar. You have a ghost living in this house.”

Scar crossed his arms. “What if I don’t want a ghost living in this house?” he said. “Bought it with my own, hard-earned money, you know. Can’t just have a ghost strolling around rent-free.”

“Don’t be rude,” Skizz said. “Say hi. Hi ghost.”

No answer.

“Maybe it only responds to him,” Impulse mused. He nudged Scar again. “Ask it another question. Maybe not Star Wars, though.”

Scar exhaled, long and hard. “Right,” he said. “Okay.” When he next spoke, he was addressing the not-quite-so-empty air. “Hi.”

“Hello.”

Scar pretended that his heart didn’t skip a beat every time he heard the spirit box crackle to life. “Right, hi. Introductions. I’m Scar. This is Impulse, and that one over there’s Skizz. Pleased to meet you?”

“You’re in my house,” the ghost said, sounding remarkably annoyed, far too annoyed for someone who was dead wrong.

“This is my house, mister,” he said. “Spent my own hard-earned money on it, you know? You’re quite lucky you’re still here at all.”

A second.

“You can’t get rid of me,” the ghost said at last. Scar got the impression they were grinning. “They’ve tried and failed and left. My house, remember?”

“I’m sure we’ll work it out,” Scar said smoothly. “But first things first. Do you happen to have a name?”

Out of the corner of his eye, Scar could see Impulse lean forward, eyes almost comically wide.

The ghost didn’t respond.

“Well?” Scar said at last. He prodded at the spirit box, which was still crackling with static and flickering with its strange green light. “I know you’re still there. If you don’t have a name, you can tell me. No shame in that, yeah?”

Again, no response.

“I’m not going to be leaving,” he said, as cheerfully as he could. “If we’re going to be roommates, you might as well tell me your name.”

“Scar—” Impulse began, but of course the ghost chose this time to finally open their dead mouth.

“It was Grian,” the ghost said at last, the pauses dragging on between the words. “My name was Grian. A long time ago.”

Scar clapped his hands together. “Grian. Pleased— well, as much as one can be— to meet you on this fine, fine day.”

“I’ll leave you guys to it, ‘kay?” Skizz called. He held up a microphone. “Got everything I need. Why don’t you get to know each other, and I’ll be back in a bit. Sound good?”

Scar didn’t particularly want to be left alone with a potentially-malevolent ghost, but it wasn’t like Impulse and Skizz could just live with him forever. If he was stuck with the ghost, he might as well get to know them.

“Right,” he said. “Me and our friendly little ghost—”

“I just told you my name was Grian—”

“—have quite a bit of getting-to-know-each-other to do, don’t we?”

Impulse hesitated. “Yeah, alright. That’s good. I’ll just be… in the other room? Not listening.”

“Don’t you dare leave me alone here,” Scar hissed. “You are not leaving this house until we work this all out.”

“Alright, alright,” Impulse said, holding up his hands in surrender. “Skizz, I’ll see you in a bit?”

Skizz gave a little wave, halfway out the door with what had to be several pounds of equipment all collected in his arms. “Will do! Scarface, I’m sure you’ll be fine.”

“I won’t touch a hair on his head,” Grian said wryly.

“See? The ghost agrees,” Skizz said. “I’mma get going now, yeah? Love ya, bye!”

The door slammed shut behind him. Only a moment later, Impulse disappeared into Scar’s bedroom. “I’ll leave you to it.”

It was just him now. Him and the spirit box sitting on the ground, and his ghostly roommate who was probably still hanging in the air.

“So we have to talk now,” Scar said. “I’ll start. Have you really never heard of Star Wars?”

~~~

In the end, Scar had managed ten minutes with the ghost, which was quite the feat, if you asked him. Afterwards, he had ended up abandoning the spirit box in the living room and had escaped to his bedroom instead, where Impulse was waiting, hopefully to offer advice.

“So,” Scar said, and then stopped. He had started his sentence expecting to end it with some sort of witty remark about the ghost— sorry, Grian— but how exactly did one talk about the fact there was quite literally a ghost sharing the house with him?

There was a long beat of silence before Impulse responded. “So?”

“There’s a ghost in my house,” Scar said.

Somewhere off in another room, he could hear the spirit box crackle. “It’s more like there’s a human in my house, really,” Grian said, his voice oddly muffled by the static.

Scar ignored him. “So, what do I do about it?”

“Um. It’s a ghost, buddy,” Impulse said slowly. “I don’t think you can do much about it?”

“So, do I just, like— what, live with it? Do I ask it to pay me rent?”

“I’m dead,” Grian said, his voice still quiet. “You can’t go scamming me now. It’s not like I have any money to give you. Unless you take ghost money?”

“You’re my roommate, technically,” Scar pointed out. “And this is my house. You owe me rent anyway, so that’s kinda not a scam, is it?”

“It’s a ghost, Scar,” Impulse said dryly, a small chuckle escaping his lips. “I don’t think it’s going to pay you rent.”

That was a shame. If Scar was going to have to be neighbours with a ghost— and a quite bothersome one at that— he was hoping to get something out of it.

“I accept IOUs. Any sort of payment will do, really.” He peered in the vague direction he hoped Grian was in. “Do you have any of those old clothes? I could probably make quite a bit with that.”

“I’m not giving you my clothes,” Grian said with an edge of disgust in his voice. “Absolutely not. Drive that out of your head right this second.”

From her spot on Scar’s lap, Jellie raised her head to stare at a certain spot just to his left. Ah. So that was where Grian was, then.

“A favor, then?” he asked hopefully, turning to face the spot he really was hoping Grian was in.

“Oh, really?” Grian sneered. “I’ll see about that.”

The spirit box crackled with static one final, pathetic time, then went silent.

Scar crossed his arms. “That’s not fair,” he grumbled. “I know you can hear me. How come you get to disappear out of conversations like that? Very serious conversations, these are.”

“I mean, he’s dead,” Impulse offered, entirely unhelpfully. “If you ask me, dying for a mute button is basically a scam.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Scar said. “He still owes me rent.”

“Man, don’t scam the poor guy twice,” Impulse said. “You’ll figure out the… uh, everything eventually.”

Scar leaned back, running his hands through Jellie’s fur. “We better,” he said. “Hear that, Grian? You’ll be paying me rent eventually. Can’t run forever.”

The spirit box buzzed back to life just long enough to hear Grian’s cackle.

This was going to be… well, if it wasn’t going to be awful—and Scar was really really hoping it wouldn’t be—then it’d certainly be interesting.

~~~

It was some godforsaken hour of the morning, and his phone was ringing.

Of course, the only thing he heard was Grian’s muffled voice. “Oh, hullo Scar,” he said. “Nice to see you awake.”

Scar ignored him, reaching for the phone. In the fifteen seconds it had taken him to wake up, it had gone dark and quiet. “I had a call?” he said helplessly, his words punctuated by a long yawn.

“Consider it a wake-up call,” Grian said.

“What?”

His alarm clock sat on the headboard, entirely still and silent, untouched. When Scar glanced at it, the numbers 05:12 blinked back at him, obscenely red and stupidly bright in the darkness.

“It’s five in the morning.”

“So it is,” Grian said. “I want to go fishing.”

He couldn’t possibly be serious. Right?

“What?”

“You heard me.”

Scar rolled over, burying his face in his pillow, and groaned. “What do you mean, you want to go fishing?”

“I think it was perfectly clear, actually,” Grian said. If Scar could bother to look up— and if he could see Grian, of course— he was fairly sure Grian would be crossing his arms. “I’m bored, and I want to go outside.”

“To fish.”

“Yes, to fish,” he said, sounding perfectly genuine. The bastard. “Do you have a problem with that?”

“It’s five in the morning,” Scar repeated. It was far too early for this— not that Scar wanted a ghost asking him to fish at any time of the day. “We’re not fishing.”

Grian huffed. “I only need the door open,” he said. “And a fishing rod. And some fish. And—”

“And you want me to fish for you,” Scar finished. “No.”

Grian was silent for a long moment. If he didn’t know better, Scar would almost think he had given up. “What about—”

“Why don’t you get Jellie to fish for you?” Scar said.

“Your cat hates me,” Grian said. “Absolutely and totally despises me.”

Scar would ignore any and all implications of that. “Oh well. Ask again in the morning. Goodnight.”

Before Grian could respond, he pulled the blanket back over his head, and ignored Grian until he finally went quiet.

Scar would make sure to sleep late in the morning.

~~~

The waters were calling, and he had to answer.

The house had found itself a little pond in its backyard in the years that Grian had spent not going outside, and apparently, according to Scar, it was now teeming with fish.

And Grian wanted them. He needed to fish.

There was something buried in that pond, he was sure of it. He was less sure on how he knew, but it didn’t matter. All that mattered is that there was something. Perhaps a relic of his old life, undoubtedly drowned and destroyed, but it was still something.

Grian had lost one of his favorite books once, a long, long time ago. If he could just find it— if he could fish the damned thing back into his life, maybe he’d get a little closer to getting out of the stupid house.

He just had one problem: he couldn’t exactly fish, not with being a ghost and all, and Scar didn’t seem particularly excited to help.

Grian had to wait hours— six hours, if the clock was right— after he had first tried to convince Scar before he could get the man to finally get out of bed.

“Will you help me?”

Scar froze. To be fair, Grian had accosted him the moment he had accidentally flicked on the spirit box. It took a good few seconds for him to respond. “Help you?”

“Help me fish,” Grian said impatiently. “It’s very important.”

Scar raised his eyebrows. “Five-in-the-morning important?”

“There’s something in that pond,” Grian insisted. “I just have to get it.”

Unfortunately for him, Scar didn’t seem quite so understanding of his innate knowledge, and he didn’t seem to want to humor him either. “There’s fish in there,” he said. “That’s all. Jellie can get one for you, if you’d like.”

Despite knowing Scar couldn’t see him, Grian wrinkled his nose. He wouldn’t associate with that monster of a cat. Absolutely no way.

“No?” Scar guessed. “You do you.”

The spirit box flicked off again, and Grian went silent.

Dammit.

He would get to that pond eventually. It might take a lot of pestering and a lot of time, but Grian was dead and had been for years. He had all the time in the world.

~~~

Somehow, without him knowing, Scar had acquired a new shirt.

He had only just gotten home from work to find a package sitting outside his front door, addressed to a Scar Goodtimes. But even with his name on the package, it certainly couldn’t have been his; save for that one keychain, Scar hadn’t bought anything online for a good few months. Not since he moved, at least.

The package was small and white, wrapped all around with plastic. What it was wasn’t the most complicated mystery in the world. It was obviously some sort of clothing— probably a shirt— but why exactly it was there proved to be a harder question.

When Scar cut open the packaging, the pieces were starting to come together.

It certainly wasn’t one of Grian’s old, dated clothes, as much as he would’ve wanted it to be. It was just a shirt, white and plain and stupidly large.

Well. Almost plain.

He unfolded the shirt, and in bold, black letters, the words GET-ALONG SHIRT stared up at him. The size of the shirt was starting to make a whole lot more sense, wasn’t it.

Scar had the sneaking suspicion he knew exactly who this was from.

Well aware that Grian was probably hovering over his shoulder watching the whole thing unfold, Scar pulled out his phone and dialed Impulse’s number for what probably was the fifth time that week.

“Impulse,” he said carefully, “did you happen to buy a shirt?”

Despite the poor audio quality, Scar could still hear Skizz laughing in the background. Impulse wasn’t very good at hiding his own chuckle either.

“The get-along shirt,” Scar read. “Why exactly do I need this? We get along just fine.” He was most certainly playing dumb, but Impulse didn’t need to know that.

“It’s for you,” Impulse said. “You and Grian. Like it?”

Scar held up the shirt. It was definitely far too big. “Impulse, he’s a ghost. He can’t wear a shirt.”

“Why don’t you try it on?”

“He’s a ghost.”

Despite Scar’s protests, Impulse eventually coerced him into it in the end. Scar was certainly not helped by Grian’s unending laughter.

Darn that spirit box for being so far away. He couldn’t be bothered to turn it off now.

Scar slumped back down on the sofa, the shirt draped over his work clothes. It was half-falling off already. “Grian,” he said.

Somewhere in between the cackles, Scar could make out a “Yeah?”

Scar patted the sofa next to him. “Sit here,” he said. “We’ve got to pretend like we’re wearing it, at least.”

Grian stopped laughing for just a second. “I can’t exactly wear it.”

“Just pretend? It might work?” Scar paused. “Do it for Jellie, then. She’ll like it.”

Scar could never find out whether Grian had listened or not, and he wouldn’t ever, at least not in the foreseeable future. Still, it’s the thought that counts, right?

He ended up sending a picture of him and the maybe-there ghost, the two of them maybe-sharing the shirt, to Impulse. This had better work.

Jellie would get a laugh out of it, anyway, and if nothing else, Scar was content with his cat being happy.

~~~

“Let me out.”

Scar hummed. “Be more polite about it and maybe I will,” he said. “I’m not keeping you here with me.”

“Yes, you are.” Grian was certainly being impatient today, wasn’t he?

“You’re a ghost,” Scar said, trying to keep his voice as mild as ever. “I can’t stop you from leaving this room.” He nodded towards the door. “You could phase through that without me opening it.”

Grian scoffed. “I didn’t mean the room,” he said. “I want out of the house. Let me out.”

Scar rolled his eyes. “You’re a ghost. I’m sure you can manage getting out on your own. You’ve spent years here; surely you’ve figured something out.”

He meant to get back to unpacking more boxes after that, but Grian just wouldn’t shut up.

“Well, I haven’t,” he snapped. “And I’d quite like to see the sun again, you know? I just need you to help me get out.”

Scar cut through the tape of one of the boxes, as though he could possibly drown out the sound of Grian and the spirit box. “I can’t do that,” he said calmly. “Wouldn’t even know how. I think you stand a better chance at asking Jellie, to be honest.”

Grian was quiet. “I didn’t mean to snap,” he said at last. “I’m sorry.”

Scar waited for him to go on.

“I have to get out of here,” he continued. “I have to. I just— you’re alive. You could help me get out. I can’t bother you if I’m halfway across the world.” Every word was undercut with the static of the spirit box, and every sentence accompanied by a too-long silence.

“I’m done with this house, you know?” If Grian sighed, Scar couldn’t hear it over the spirit box, but it seemed a fitting moment for a sigh. “Years, Scar. Years. I need to see the sun.”

“I’m sure you do,” Scar said. “I don’t think being dead does wonders for your complexion.”

“Scar.”

Scar raised his hands. “Calm down, sheesh. I’ll help you. But not now, alright? Let me get settled in, figure out what I’m going to do when I’m out of the house, and then we can work on getting you out there too. Alright?”

He pitied Grian, in a way. Scar was no stranger to locking himself up in the house. He had stuck himself inside too, hid himself away from most— if not all— human interaction. It was only a recent development that he got himself out for work at all.

It wasn’t a fun experience. He knew that all too well.

But helping Grian out now, when he had only just gotten his feet on the ground, would get them both nowhere.

“Alright,” Grian said. “I’ll just go back to stalking your cat, then.”

Scar blinked.

He probably should get Grian out of the house for at least a few minutes, sooner rather than later. For both their sakes.

~~~

Jellie first saw the not-human again many long days after it had first appeared. Her human had finally noticed it, and with that came a whole slew of interest in the not-human. Her own human had brought friends to study the thing. It was all very loud, and quite annoying at that.

But it was quiet now, and the not-human was still here. It had been gone for a bit to who-knew-where, but it had finally ended up disturbing her peaceful little existence again.

Ghost, her human had called it. Jellie wasn’t sure exactly what a ghost was, but it sounded dangerous enough. It didn’t seem to be particularly dangerous unprovoked, but who knew the consequences if someone did go bother it.

Well, she supposed, she could always find out.

Jellie had always been the competitive sort, and hadn’t the ghost mentioned something about fish? Yes, she could work with that.

Perhaps she could catch a fish. Prove she was the better hunter. That… thing could haunt her human all it liked, but when it came to survival, it was undeniable that Jellie was far superior. There was a reason she was her human’s favorite, after all, and Jellie would make sure it knew it.

Some time ago, she had learned of a small pond in the wilds behind the house. Upon further investigation, she had also learned it was teeming with life— teeming with fish.

This would work nicely.

When she ended up making her move, it was late at night. Not for the first time, her human had left the door open, and she had taken the chance to sneak through.

The ghost had been waiting beside the door. Not for her— it barely seemed to react at all as she approached. Instead, its eyes were fixed on the world outside, on the quiet night, listening to the rustle of leaves in the wind.

It did notice when she slipped past it. She must have brushed through its not-there leg, because the moment she was through the door, she could already feel its eyes on her.

Was it going to follow her?

It didn’t matter, she decided. Whether it followed her or not, she would be the one to get the fish, not some intruder.

The grass had been undisturbed for some time, and it had grown long and tall. Taller than Jellie. Despite all that, despite her unmatched ability to be a shadow amidst the night, she could still feel that damned ghost’s eyes on her.

Jellie made her way over to the pond, as quiet as the dead. The ghost didn’t make a sound either.

The pond sat before her, still and inviting, the faint flicker of fish beneath the surface.

The ghost was still watching, probably. Was this how the fish felt?

Well, Jellie would put them out of their misery soon enough.

She had only needed to wait a few seconds before she managed to snatch a fish up between her jaws. By the time she had shaken all the water off her fur, the fish had mostly stopped wriggling. Excellent.

When Jellie turned around, the ghost had its eyes fixed on her. On the fish.

There. Now it knew.

Jellie set the fish right at the ghost’s feet— her human wouldn’t be pleased if she brought it inside, and besides, the ghost needed to see her victory up close and personal. It didn’t seem very happy about it. If it was anything like her human, the sound it made was horribly offended.

Jellie trotted back inside, cheerful as ever, to the mutterings of the ghost behind her.

“I’ll get out there one day,” she heard the ghost murmur. “And then you’ll be done for.”

~~~

It really was strange how long the world had kept on going and the clock had kept on turning, even long after Grian was dead and not-quite-gone. He hadn’t expected time to stop, of course, but he hadn’t expected to be there to see every last second seep by.

But he had. Even if he didn’t want to watch the world move on, it did nonetheless.

The house Grian had died in had been knocked down and built back up and knocked down again. Burned, flooded, collapsed. And throughout it all, the world lay just beyond his grasp, tantalizing and unreachable.

Everything was new now. Different. New house, new owner, new person to inevitably chase out.

This time, it was Scar, and he had brought his own slew of too-new things. A dark rectangle, glossy and probably smooth to the touch— not that Grian could find out— that danced with a thousand colors and lights when Scar flicked it on.

A television, Scar had called it. And now Grian was stuck watching him being strangely engrossed in the thing.

He could see images flash past on what Scar called a screen. He could see Scar’s reflection in the thing, excitable and wide-eyed. He couldn’t see his own.

“What is this?” Grian said. He tried to poke the screen, but his hand passed straight through. Damn the inconsistency of ghost physics.

Scar waved him away as if he could see Grian. “What I’m watching?”

Not exactly, but Grian would take it. This was a new age now. Grian had to learn its ways if he were to ever leave. “Sure.”

“This,” Scar said— hang on, was that pride he could hear?— brightly, “is Star Wars. Remember?”

Grian peered at the screen. Ships were flying past each other in an empty void, except the void was filled with flashing lights and it wasn’t very quiet at all. He chose not to question it. “This doesn’t seem very good,” he said at last.

Scar let out a gasp of horror. “It’s amazing, thank you very much. How dare you. Even Jellie likes it!”

From its spot on his roommate’s lap, the cat did seem engrossed in whatever low-quality show— movie, sorry— was going on. However, Grian had already determined that said cat had terrible taste, and therefore didn’t take its opinion into account.

Grian perched on the back of the sofa, watching whatever mess was unfolding onscreen with a mixture of distaste and disinterest. “I really don’t get why you like this.”

Scar swatted at the air again, this time in vaguely the right direction. Impressive. “I like it because it’s a masterpiece, thank you very much.” He sniffed. “If you don’t like it, you could always go somewhere else.”

Grian snorted. “Somewhere else?” The idea was ridiculous. Where could he possibly have to go but here? “I wish.”

“Oh?” Scar said. “Stick around, then. Bask in the wonders of Star Wars. We can even have a binge. It’s the weekend, after all.”

…he wasn’t going to ask what a binge was.

“Do I have anywhere else to go?” Grian said, a little helplessly.

“We could get Skizz to study you,” Scar offered. “Impulse too. They’ve been very excited for this opportunity, you know.”

Grian wrinkled his nose. “No thank you. I’d rather watch whatever this is.”

Scar clapped his hands. “Glad we’ve come to an agreement! Now shush. I want to finish watching this in peace.”

Grian shut up. This was going to be a long night, wasn’t it?

~~~

Scar was deeply offended with just how he learned that he did get Grian into Star Wars after all. Weeks of his life he had spent needling his ghostly roommate to watch just one more movie with him, and he found this out through a sign.

He supposed it was fitting— he had kind-of discovered Grian’s maybe-existence through a sign too, albeit a much simpler one— but did it really have to be a sign?

It’s less of a sign and more of a banner, really. Scar doesn’t even want to know how Grian managed it. Scrawled across the white sheet in thick red letters are the words: LET THE SCAR WARS BEGIN.

The Scar Wars. The Scar Wars? Out of all the potential options Grian could’ve called whatever this was, he had to choose a Star Wars reference.

This was so unfair. Scar would have to get Grian back on this. No one got to make obvious Star Wars references but him.

Grian wasn’t even interested in Star Wars. It was rude, really. He should’ve left the honors to Scar.

~~~

“You don’t even like Star Wars,” Scar said, holding up his banner. “What even is this?’

Grian let himself dive and twirl through the air, knowing full well Scar couldn’t see a thing he was doing. “You’ll find out soon enough.”

Was that ominous enough? He hoped it was.

“Again,” Scar said. “You don’t like Star Wars.”

“Nope!” Grian said cheerfully. “But I do like puns. And that was a good pun, if I do say so myself. Like it?”

“I’d like it better if I knew what it meant.” Scar tossed the banner onto the ground. It was probably supposed to fly in Grian’s general direction, but given Grian was an invisible ghost and all, it ended up in the completely wrong direction and flopping pathetically on the sofa.

Grian pouted, even though, again, Scar couldn’t see him. “I spent my time on that. Blood, sweat, and tears.”

Scar pulled himself out of his wheelchair, slouching on the sofa beside the banner. Grian chose to join him.

“Do I even want to know how you managed that?” Scar asked, more to the empty air than Grian.

“Does it matter?” Grian asked back, more to the cat than the human. “See, Scar. I’ve already won. All you need to do is play along.”

Scar crossed his arms. “No thank you,” he said.

“Oh, poor you,” Grian said. “Don’t you see? It’s over. I’ll always have the high ground.”

A beat. Grian was most certainly grinning like the devil now— not that Grian had ever met him, he was too busy being not-alive-but-not-quite-dead-either.

Grian got the distinct impression if Scar could actually touch him, he would have been shoved off the sofa by now. As it was, Scar had seemingly just put on his most wonderfully offended face possible. “You little—”

Grian whooped a laugh, swooping off the sofa with a little loop, just before Scar could sic the cat on him.

“Oh, you’re on,” Scar said. “Is that how we’re going to do this? Alright then, mister Grian. Let the Scar Wars— I hope you know how bad of a name that is— begin.”

~~~

The bells were ringing again.

Why exactly they were ringing, Scar had no idea— nor did he have an idea where they had come from in the first place— but he would bet it had something to do with Grian. He could vaguely recall the sound of ringing bells accompanying what he learned was Grian’s presence, back before he had learned about the ghost at all.

They hadn’t made a noise since. Scar supposed Grian had been too busy annoying him, but now that whatever the Scar Wars were had begun, Grian had resorted to his old tricks again.

The bells didn’t even ring consistently. That would have been fine. No, Grian had seemed to decide to ring them every few hours or so; either that or all at once, in a rapid-fire, deafening burst of bells clanging.

And Scar couldn’t even see those damned bells.

“Where are you even getting those from?” he had complained once. “You’re a ghost.”

“And you’re a human who misplaces your things,” Grian had retorted. “First signs, now bells. I’ll be stealing your cat next if you’re not careful.”

…Scar made sure to keep Jellie as close as she would allow for the next few days.

The bells kept ringing. Gosh darn Grian.

“Is there a point to any of this?” Scar asked, running his hand through Jellie’s face.

“Why of course,” Grian answered. Underneath the static of the spirit box, Scar could still hear those stupid bells. “I’m going to win the Scar Wars. This is only phase one of my plan.”

Scar rolled his eyes. “What? You want me to leave? And be stuck here all alone again? Just turn off the bells, and we can be done with this.”

Grian laughed. “Who said I can stop them?” he half-said, half-sang. “If you want to stop them, you’ll have to find them.”

And find them Scar did.

There were only a few at first, hidden in both shadowy corners and the brightest, boldest shelves of the house. Scar had no idea how he missed them, but one by one, he started collecting them.

“How did you get these bells?”

“You had them,” Grian said brightly. “I just borrowed them. Permanently. Could I have those back, please?”

Scar tucked yet another bell away in his drawer. It was starting to get full, but at least those things couldn’t bother him in there. “They’re my bells. I’d rather give them to charity rather than give them to you.”

Grian huffed. “Do you really hate me that much?”

“I hate the bells,” Scar said. “Was that not obvious?” He shook a finger at the air. “The second I find them all, they’re going out of the house. Understand?” He felt a little like he was lecturing a child— not even Jellie, just a literal child— but if it worked, it worked.

He got the feeling this wouldn’t work. At all.

“Just you wait,” Scar muttered. “Just you wait.”

He was right.

From then on, when Scar snuck around— in his house— looking for bells, he found little paper cutouts instead. For every bell Grian had hidden, there were three fakes. They were crude and shaky, poorly cut and barely resembling a bell at all, but they were there, and Scar certainly hadn’t made them.

For a ghost, Grian had an unfair amount of power over the living world.

Grian followed him as he looked for the bells, too, which only added salt to the wound. He watched Scar with mischievously bright eyes as he rummaged around for the things.

Every time Scar found a paper bell, Grian would cackle, loud even through the spirit box. “Those aren’t the bells you’re looking for,” he would sing, and Scar would swat at the general direction he thought Grian was in.

In the end, he found thirteen bells before the ringing had finally shut up. Grian hadn’t quit making Star Wars references the entire time?

Fine.

If it was a war Grian wanted, it was a war he would get.

~~~

When it came to pranking Grian, Scar had one critical problem.

How exactly did one prank a ghost?

See, Grian may have been perfectly content knocking Scar’s things over, of course, but it wasn’t like Scar had any of his things to drop. If Grian owned anything at all, Scar couldn’t see it and certainly wouldn’t be able to prank Grian with it.

Jellie was sometimes of help, but she could only identify where Grian was. Scar still wasn’t sure how she could accurately guess his position, but he had stopped second guessing his cat’s abilities a long time ago.

Even if he did manage to pull something off, Scar had full confidence in Grian’s ability to pass through it.

Which left Scar back at square one, all because Grian was a pesky ghost. Really, of all things, his sort-of roommate had ended up being a ghost.

Actually, all of this was Grian’s fault. This wouldn’t have even started if Grian had left Star Wars alone.

So really, it wasn’t Scar’s fault that his search history was now filled with links to ever more ghost hunting tips and tricks. Grian had the audacity to be a ghost, and therefore it was his fault. Skizz and Impulse had laughed at him for wanting to prank a ghost—more like Skizz laughed at him and Impulse gave very unhelpful advice—so, the internet was his only solution.

Still, that didn’t change the fact that Scar was still doing it.

Specters have proven unable to pass through mirrors, one site said. Scar wasn’t sure the word specter applied to Grian, but he’d take it.

Salt can serve as an effective barrier to a ghost’s movement, said another, if the salt lines are thick enough.

And on, and on, and on.

Salt, mirrors, spirit boxes, some sort of camera thing… Scar wasn’t even going to pretend he could make sense of it all.

But it didn’t take a genius to come up with a good idea, and he had learned well enough from Impulse. Grian was the living—dead? Dying? Ghostly?—proof of that.

And boy, did Scar have an idea.

It was time to get to work.

~~~

See, Grian had a problem. That problem happened to be a culmination of other problems, none of which were his fault.

Grian just so happened to be a ghost, which was inconvenient enough in itself.

Being a ghost came with its own set of pros and cons. On one hand, he was dead, and therefore allowed to do basically whatever he wanted. On the other, he was dead, which also seemingly meant half-existing for the rest of eternity.

Seriously, what use was being practically immortal and invulnerable if he couldn’t leave the damned house? He couldn’t even touch anything, not properly, anyway. It was beyond infuriating.

Admittedly, Grian had found little loopholes he exploited to no end. The indifferent universe seemed perfectly happy to let him bother other things into motion if he tried hard enough. But salt? That was an entirely different story. It wouldn’t move. Ever. Not an inch. And if that wasn’t bad enough, it wouldn’t let him take a single step across either.

He was a ghost, and he could be bested by salt. Salt. And Scar just had to take advantage of that.

To be fair, he had this coming. See? Grian would admit that.

Grian wasn’t entirely sure how Scar had done it, but what mattered was that he had. And now Grian was stuck.

He must have zoned out for a bit, or whatever he did when he wasn’t focusing— he didn’t think ghosts could sleep— but when he blinked himself back to awareness, he found himself in the corner of a dark room.

At his feet was a line of salt running perpendicular to the wall, accompanied by another one that lined the base of the wall. Between the two, a path was slowly forming, branching out and twisting and turning with even more salt lines.

Scar hadn’t just used Grian’s greatest weakness against him. He had used it to make a maze.

…Grian had to admit it was impressive. That didn’t mean he had to be happy about it, but it really was quite the feat.

The maze ended up being infuriatingly difficult. Scar had remembered to line the walls with salt, leaving all the perks of being a ghost— namely being able to pass through said walls— utterly useless. And it was dark, which was just wonderful.

If Grian hadn’t been literally unable to fall over, he would probably have tripped over his own feet and face-planted into the salt. Fortunately enough, he just had to half-stumble half-float around instead.

Two hours. Two hours he spent wandering in that dark room, bumping into barriers that weren’t even there.

The moment he got out, he was going to make Scar sweep it all away before he even stepped a foot inside again. Even better, he would get his revenge.

~~~

There was a shirt flying across the room.

Jellie didn’t appreciate that in the slightest. It was her favorite shirt too. What right did it have to fly away to the top of the desk like some bird? It wasn’t like she couldn’t get it down if she wanted to, but she much preferred it on her owner’s bed, easy to reach and easy to find.

But no. The ghost just had to pull its tricks, and it just had to get Jellie involved again. After the fish incident, you would think it knew better.

Apparently not.

Things went flying across her human’s room, shirts and trousers and whatever else going sprawling on his bed. There was a lamp knocked over. Several papers were on the floor, but they could’ve been there to begin with.

By the time the ghost was through, the room was mildly messier than normal, and Jellie was very, very annoyed.

If the ghost was going to have its fun, couldn’t it have done it away from her little bubble of tranquility? It didn’t have to laugh obscenely loudly as it messed with her human either. She was sure it was trying to bother her at this point.

She was going to complain to her human once he got home, but she fell asleep in the sun first. What could she say? It was warm on the windowsill.

She woke to her human bustling about in his room. The ghost was helping to sweep everything back in a gust of icy wind, and her human accepted the help gratefully. He was smiling too. She hadn’t even been able to see if he had been bothered at all.

How was she supposed to complain now?

Damn that ghost. The sun too, for good measure.

Next time, when things went flying around, they had better be actual birds. For everyone’s sake.

~~~

“Hear me out,” Scar said. “I love whatever we have going on and all, but maybe it could stop being all-out war, yeah?”

“It hasn’t even been that long,” Grian complained. “This is a pathetic amount of pranks.”

“I even have a shirt to commemorate the… peace treaty,” Scar said, holding up said shirt. It had said SCAR WARS once upon a time— he thought Grian had been the one to write it— but Scar had crossed it out and replaced it with a little message of his own.

STOP WARS, the shirt now read in red marker.

Not the most eloquent thing, but it would do. Scar had better things to do than engage in a full-time war with his ghostly roommate, after all.

The Scar Wars had probably gone on long enough by now. Scar had created all sorts of intricate salt mazes at this point, with nothing better to do when he wasn’t working— although he had managed to steal back his bells once. Grian, being the one whose prankee was actually physical, had gotten far more creative with his.

Scar was quite tired of waking up to find his alarm clock on the other side of the room, thank you very much.

“A prank once every two weeks,” he said. “Sound good?”

“What else am I supposed to do?” Grian complained.

Scar pointed in the vague direction he thought Grian was here. “Listen here, G—”

“I’m behind you.”

Scar swiveled around and kept going. “I do have work I need to be doing, you know. And we’re running out of salt.”

“No thanks to you,” Grian muttered.

“Yeah, yeah,” Scar said, rolling his eyes. He held up the shirt. “So, what do you say?”

Grian hesitated. “I still get to prank you?”

“And I get to prank you,” Scar agreed. “Roommate things. You know, we haven’t been very good roommates. We ought to start that now. Truce?”

Grian huffed a long sigh. “Fine,” he said at last. “Truce.”

So that was that. Scar had a proper roommate now. One who was dead, admittedly, but still.

“I think I win the Scar Wars, though,” Grian went on, utterly oblivious to Scar’s inner musings.

“Absolutely not,” Scar said. He grabbed the nearest salt packet he could find. “Begone, foul demon, or admit your defeat!”

Clearly, while Grian was easily defeated by salt, salt in a packet had one weakness: its paper. The packet went flying out of Scar’s hand and across the room, Grian laughing all the while.

“I didn’t think that would work,” he admitted. “But look! I have the force, Scar!”

Scar threw the shirt at him.

Grian sent it flying back.

~~~

After the end of the Scar Wars, it seemed that Grian didn’t quite know what to do with himself anymore, so he just… lingered. He followed Scar around the house and watched him do, quote-unquote, “living things”, going out of his way to bother Jellie every now and then.

The uninvited roommate had become just a roommate now, he supposed. Whether he or Grian was the uninvited roommate was still up for debate, his point still stood.

With Grian came conversations, and with conversations came the need to actually hear what Grian was saying. Scar had taken to carrying around the spirit box as a result. Most of these conversations were perfectly civil, which Scar appreciated.

This conversation was not one of them.

“Scar,” Grian said, voice too-cheerful in a way that didn’t bode well at all. “Tell me, what’s in your pockets?”

Scar narrowed his eyes. Did he hear Grian right? “That Scar Wars thing just ended. I’m not letting you start a Lord of the Rings war too.”

“I’m not going to start a world-ending war yet,” Grian said impatiently. Scar got the feeling he was rolling his eyes. “Just let me see what’s in your pockets, yeah? I’ve got a couple bells I want back.”

“They’re not your bells,” Scar complained, but Grian wheedled him into it in the end.

There was actually a bell still left in one of his many pockets, but it took so long to find it wasn’t even worth it for either of them in the end. Scar had to dig through all those many pockets, and he emptied them all.

A pile was starting to grow on the nearby shelf. The spirit box, dirty coins, random bits of thread, leftover packets of salt, and who knew what else all sat in a heap, precarious and oh-so-close to all dropping at Scar’s feet.

“The bells?” Grian prompted.

Scar took the only one out of his pocket, careful to place it near the back of the shelf, trapped within a small circle of salt packets. “There’s your bell. Happy now?”

“What’s that?”

Scar blinked, about to begin shoving everything back in his pockets again. “What?”

“That.”

On the shelf, the spirit box toppled over. Who knew something as simple as Grian’s interest would be so powerful?

“It’s the spirit box,” Scar said. “Haven’t you seen it before?”

“It’s not very nice,” Grian decided. “Couldn’t they make it look better?”

Scar had to admit Grian was right. The spirit box was less a sort of remote and more like a misshapen mess of wires shoved into a metal box. It had speakers and a small green screen, sure, but those too looked out of place and were scratched to hell and back. Any and all buttons had long since gone unused and now refused to press when Scar needed them.

Really, the only truly functional parts of the spirit box were its off switch and its speakers.

He got the feeling that if Grian was physically there, he would be prodding the thing disapprovingly.

“It’s only a prototype, probably,” he said with a shrug. “Humans haven’t exactly met that many ghosts, you know. I’m surprised it worked at all.”

“And you’ve dropped it like five times,” Grian said. “But still. Couldn’t you get a new one?”

“What if that one didn’t work?” Scar pointed out. Was Grian really making him be the reasonable one? This was so unfair. Scar was the one who was supposed to mess with his friends, not the other way around.

“Hmm.” Grian said nothing else.

In any other circumstance, it would be ominous. However, Scar had become accustomed enough to Grian and his hijinks over the past couple weeks to know to ignore it.

Bad idea.

Scar had just grabbed the spirit box from the shelf — he left the bell and salt where they were— when a sharp, icy wind burst from the open window, hitting him straight in the face and blinding him, even for just a moment.

A moment too long.

In the time it took for Scar to blink, the spirit box was already hurtling towards the ground.

“Wait, no—!”

He didn’t catch it in time.

It smashed into the hard ground with an almighty crash, its wires snapping and the metal breaking apart, and he swore he could hear Grian laugh right before the static died.

One second, he had been holding the spirit box, perfectly fine and whole, and the next, it was on the ground, broken into pieces.

Scar could get another one, sure, but it would certainly take a while. Impulse would probably be used to it, to be fair.

“Grian?” he said, even though he couldn’t possibly expect a response. “Grian, you there?”

Maybe he was hoping for the bell to ring or a sign to appear or anything. For as the seconds ticked on, Grian was unnaturally, utterly silent.

Scar hadn’t just made his roommate disappear, right? Grian’s life-force— ghost-force? — couldn’t possibly be tied to the spirit box. Scar had just… cut them off for a little while.

“Sorry about that,” he said at last. “But it’ll be a bit quieter for me, at least. You can deal with Jellie. Consider it revenge for starting the Scar Wars at all.”

Yeah. He’d like some quiet. It wouldn’t take long to get another spirit box— he was sure either Impulse or Skizz had one to spare— and in the meantime, he could make the best of the silence.

“So about that—”

“Don’t you dare,” Scar said automatically, before he truly realized what had just come out of his mouth, and more importantly, what he had just heard. “Wait, hang on!”

He looked down.

The spirit box was still very much broken, sitting shattered and pathetic on the ground.

And Grian was speaking.

…what?

“What the hell?”

“Hello, Scar,” Grian said, as if nothing had happened. “So I may have lied to you. Just a little.”

No way. No way Grian had kept that up for all those weeks. Kept it up from before they even met.

“Grian.”

“I think I win the Scar Wars,” Grian decided, completely ignoring Scar. “This is the ultimate prank, actually, and since I declared the war, I say I win. Agreed?”

“The spirit box is broken,” Scar said, a little lamely. He wasn’t even paying attention to what Grian was saying, only the fact that he could hear the ghost at all.

“Yeah, I know,” Grian said. “I broke it.”

Scar blinked. “What?”

“Wind is my specialty,” Grian said, almost sing-song. “I’m a ghost. I get some perks, remember?”

Admittedly, Scar didn’t, but he would believe it. Considering the broken spirit box and all, Grian had proven many times that he could throw whatever he knew about ghosts out the window.

“So I don’t need a new spirit box,” he said. “Oh. That’s good.”

“No, I don’t think so,” Grian agreed. A faint breeze brushed around Scar’s legs, nudging the broken pieces of the spirit box across the ground. “I don’t think the ugly thing worked at all.”

Great. Great. Not only did Scar had a ghost for a roommate, it could freely talk to him too. And his cat, apparently.

“How in the world were you even talking to Jellie?”

“I didn’t,” Grian said simply. “I’m not talking to your monster of a cat. Jellie hates me. I think seeing me is enough for it.”

“Maybe you should stop talking to me,” Scar suggested. “I think I hate you too. I’ve been carrying around that thing for nothing.”

Grian snorted. “I mean, I shut up when you switched it off,” he said. “Win-win situation, really. I’ll even clean up the spirit box bits for you, if it makes you feel better. I probably deserve that.”

Fair enough, he supposed. Was it worth it? Absolutely not.

“I hate you,” he groaned, leaning back in his chair. “I actually hate you.”

Grian— that utter bastard— only laughed.

~~~

This could either be a very good idea, or a very stupid one.

But see, if Scar had been able to hear Grian all along— or so Grian claimed, anyway— who was to say they couldn’t make Grian appear to him too?

Jellie could see the ghost. Scar saw no reason why he couldn’t try to as well.

Hence, the summoning circle.

The day before, he had bought a good supply of red candles, along with a lighter, chalk, and whatever else he thought he would need. He had almost considered buying a ouija board too, but Impulse had talked him out of that one in the end.

“You might as well try,” Impulse had said when Scar had proposed his idea. “It could work. Let me know if it does, alright?”

“Alright,” Scar had said.

And now here he was, fully committed to whatever was going to come of this plan. He had read up as much as he could on summoning circles and magic and whatnot to prepare for this. If this wasn’t going to work, nothing would.

There was a small, unused room in the darkest corner of his house, and Scar decided to use that. He didn’t have a basement and he wasn’t willing to risk the attic, so really this was the only option.

Impulse had asked to help, so Scar let him draw out where the candles would go, making sure they were as light and precise as possible. Scar had always been good at designing. He was sure it would end up fine.

Grian wasn’t quite so certain.

“Remind me why you’re doing this again?”

Scar nearly jumped out of his wheelchair. Now that Grian had dropped the act, his voice was prone to coming out of nowhere from anywhere in the room. Including behind him.

“Don’t scare me like that!” he said, twisting around to face Grian even though he wouldn’t be able to see. Well, that would be fixed soon enough. “If I can hear you, who says I can’t see you too?”

“You really can’t see me,” Grian said dryly. “So now you’re resorting to a summoning circle? I’m not a demon, Scar.”

Scar rolled his eyes. “Just you wait. It will work.”

So he lit the candles, sat himself down in the center of his circle, and he waited for the ghost who was probably lingering just behind his shoulder.

“I summon you,” he said to the air, to Grian. “I summon Grian No-Surname, the… the ghost.”

Absolutely nothing. He could hear Jellie bat at the door from outside.

“Try again,” Grian said, sounding awfully amused. “Maybe—” His words died as soon as they had come. If they still relied on the spirit box, Scar would have thought someone flicked it off.

But no.

“Grian?” he called, chancing a look over his shoulder.. “Grian, buddy, you there?”

Silence. And then—

“What the hell did you just do?”

Scar whipped around. The candles sputtered into blazes for a moment, filling the room with warmth and light. At the heart of the circle, just in front of Scar. he swore he could see a form amidst the light, silvery and translucent. When it brushed past him, it was cold to the touch.

A ghost.

And the ghost was watching him. Its eyes were bright and curious, no more dull than any living person’s.

The candles flared just one more time, and then their flames died back down. By the time Scar went over to flick the light back on, the ghost was gone, and Grian was half-laughing, half-gasping.

“What was that?” he demanded. “What the hell?”

“It worked,” Scar breathed. “Grian, it worked!” He clapped his hands together. His gaze darted about the room, looking for any more traces of his ghostly roommate. “We have to try that again.”

Grian said nothing.

“Grian?”

“I don’t think you need the demon shrine,” Grian said at last, the words slow. “Scar, look up for me, will you?”

He listened.

The ghost was back, still floating somewhere at the center of the circle, staring down at its hands. Now that the lights were on, Scar could make out a faded red sweater and brown hair and stained shoes, all fitting onto a ghost with their mouth wide open.

“I can see you,” Scar said. He pinched himself, just to check he wasn’t dreaming. He wasn’t. There really was a ghost in his house, and Scar could see him at last. “That is you, right?”

“Oh,” Grian said. “Oh.” A beat. “Scar, I think it worked.”

Scar wheeled himself closer, knocking over the extinguished candles in the process. He had to tilt his head up to look Grian in the eye. “Yeah,” he said. “I think it did.”

His uninvited roommate, now finally visible and most certainly real, looked back at him, grinning wide and hopeful. “Hello, Scar.”

Scar grinned back. “Hi Grian. Pleased to see you at last.”

~~~

“So,” Scar said.

“So,” Grian echoed, tilting his head. If he thought living in a new time was strange, being visible after years and years was even stranger.

Well, the chances were that he wasn’t visible. A few minutes after Scar had properly met him at last, Grian had seemed to flicker back out of existence. From then on, the invisibility thing was as inconsistent as everything else, but Grian would take being sometimes visible over being never visible.

So maybe Scar couldn’t see him that very second, but just in case he could, Grian had to make every moment count, didn’t he?

“I want to talk to you.”

Grian shrugged. “I figured.”

It was weird to know that someone— a human, not just Scar’s cat— could actually see him, and weirder to know the way the world went about it wasn’t even consistent.

He didn’t particularly enjoy living as a flicker of shadow.

“Just hear me out,” Scar said. “You said you wanted to go outside?”

“Right,” Grian said. What exactly was the point to this? Grian had wanted to go outside for years, sure. It wasn’t fun being stuck in the same house for the rest of eternity. But that wasn’t an option, was it? Even the cat had proven it. “So?”

“I was thinking,” Scar said, painfully slowly. If he was going to get Grian’s hopes up for nothing— he was sure it was unintentional, but it stung all the same— he might as well get it over with.

“Yes?”

Scar looked down. Jellie was sitting on his lap. Even from the ceiling, Grian could see that cat’s beady eyes fixed on him. Waiting. Listening.

“Impulse was saying,” he said at last. “Uh. He said something about ghosts, um, attaching? Hanging on to people? Something like that.”

“It won’t work,” Grian said. He hadn’t believed it, he hadn’t, but he still felt his heart sink anyway. He had tried attaching onto someone once, a long, long time ago. It hadn’t worked. His old not-quite roommate had gone about their merry day, blissfully unaware, and still when Grian had tried to slip out the front door with them, the house had dragged him back in. “I’ve tried.”

“I’m the first person who’s seen you since you died,” Scar pointed out. “First human, anyway. Isn’t that what you said?”

Grian crossed his arms. “I never said they knew about it.”

“So maybe that’s it,” Scar said brightly, snapping his fingers. “Maybe it’s not that you have to follow along. You’ve already gotten that done and dusted. What if I have to bring you with me?”

Yeah, no. If that were true, the exorcisms would’ve worked long ago.

Grian said as much,

Scar rolled his eyes. “Don’t give up that easily. We just have to do a little experimenting. There has to be a way. We just have to find it.”

“Do you really want me out that badly?” Grian settled on the floor beside Scar. The cat’s eyes followed him. It certainly wanted him out, didn’t it?

“Hey,” Scar said. “Alive or not, you’re my roommate, and I’m the first person you’ve talked to in years. This is the least I could do for you. We have to try, right?

Grian exhaled— well, not quite, because he couldn’t breathe, but he sighed. “Fine,” he said, the words dragging as they made their way up his throat. “We’ll try. But if it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work, alright?”

Scar grinned. He seemed to realize where Grian was, because for just a moment, he looked him in the eye. “Alright. Then we better get started.”

~~~

“How exactly do we do this?”

If he looked out of the corner of his eye, Scar could make out Grian’s shaky form, head tilted down so he could study his own ghostly hands. “Do I just have to touch you or something?” he continued.

Scar shrugged. “Try it?”

Grian gave Scar an experimental tap on the shoulder. Nothing happened, save for the chill that ran through his body when Grian’s hand phased through living flesh.

…that made it sound much stranger than necessary.

“You said you needed to help to properly attach,” Grian said, sounding like he very much didn’t believe this would work at all. “So…”

“Alright, alright,” Scar said. “What am I supposed to do? Shake your hand?”

The key to appeasing a spirit is to come to an agreement, he vaguely recalled one of the ghost-hunting sites saying, way back when he was researching how to prank Grian. Did a handshake count?

“Might as well try it,” Grian said. “I’ve got nothing better to do.”

Scar hesitated. “Grian,” he said slowly, “you do want to keep trying, right? If you really don’t want to— I know you’ve tried way too many times already— I’m happy to let you just stay. As my roommate.”

Grian was quiet for a long time. His form was definitely flickering in and out of existence now.

“No,” he said at last. “I want to try.” When Scar tried to focus on him, he could see Grian grin, wider and more obvious than the rest of him. “I got lucky enough not even to die properly. Gotta make the most of it, right?”

Scar stuck his hand out.

He couldn’t see if Grian tried to shake it, but he could certainly feel it. An icy chill clasped around his hand, racing up his arm and down his spine and through every vein in his body. His hand was going numb, still probably stuck in Grian’s ghostly grasp.

It was working. It had to be. It had to—

Did it work?

The voice was distinctly Grian’s. Scar couldn’t properly hear his words— his ears were ringing too loudly— but he didn’t have to, because Grian hadn’t said anything, and Scar had understood anyway.

Scar?

The voice rung louder this time, emanating out from somewhere deep inside his own skull. The cold didn’t die down, but it faded a little, and the chill reaching into his bones was a little easier to ignore.

Scar blinked, shaking his head as if it could focus his vision. Grian was nowhere to be seen. “G? You there?”

I think it worked, Grian didn’t say.

Scar could almost feel Grian now, nestled away in some dark corner of his brain, clinging onto him and his body. Tied to him. “Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, it definitely worked.” He wheeled around to face the door. “Want to try it out?”

No response. Grian didn’t say a word, be it aloud or inside Scar’s head.

Jellie padded over to curl up on his lap. With it, she brought a wave of warmth, washing away the icy cold Grian had brought.

On the edge of his vision, Scar could make out a certain ghost flickering back to life.

“So we need to practice,” Scar declared. “But that was a pretty good first try, yeah?” He shook out his arms. “Screw the cold, though.”

“I wouldn’t call it good,” Grian drawled, disappearing from Scar’s vision. “At least it worked.”

“Do you want to try again?”

Grian hesitated. “Do I have to?”

“I’m not going to force you,” Scar said with a shrug. “If you’re up for it, I’ll help. If you’re done, then we’ll figure it out from there. Simple.”

Jellie meowed indignantly.

“I don’t think she likes the idea of me staying very much,” Grian said dryly. “Alright, we’ll keep trying. At least we know it works, right?

Scar grinned, scratching Jellie behind the ears. “Aww, are you starting to like her?”

Grian snorted. “Keep your monster of a cat to yourself,” he said. “I swear, it caught that damn fish just to spite me.”

“Sure, sure.” Scar rolled his eyes. “Same time tomorrow, then?”

“There’s not much point in setting this up,” Grian pointed out. “We live in the same house. If you’re looking for me, all you have to do is follow the sound of bells.”

“You better not be ringing those bells again. I’ll— I’ll sic Jellie on you.”

A beat.

“So, this time tomorrow?” he asked.

“This time tomorrow,” Grian agreed. “Maybe it’ll even work.”

“Maybe,” Scar said. “We’ll figure it out eventually. You’ll get out of the house.”

Jellie meowed again, louder and more insistent this time, and if he could understand cats, Scar had a feeling it was something awfully similar to you better.

~~~

They ended up getting it to properly work two weeks later.

It was a very inconspicuous day, meaning one where Grian was bored out of his mind. With the Scar Wars being officially over— or at least brought to some sort of truce— Grian had nothing better to do than bother Scar.

And Scar was out of the house today, working. As a functional member of society. Grian would be impressed if it didn’t mean there was nothing other to do than bother the cat.

Grian was alone, which meant he was bored, which meant he came up with a very, very bad idea.

So somehow, that was how he got here, sitting now-visibly on the hard floor, waiting.

Scar arrived home right on time, only to open the door to see Grian sitting peacefully, eyes closed, careful not to acknowledge Scar at all.

“Grian?” he said.

Grian said nothing.

“Are you sleeping?” Scar asked incredulously. “Can ghosts sleep?”

Again, Grian kept his mouth shut. He had to bite back a giggle, but he made sure not a sound escaped his throat.

Scar had left Grian on his own far too long. Now it was time to see how he liked it.

Or that was the plan, anyway.

“You just chilling?” Scar said. “I know you’re there, Grian. I really don’t think ghosts can sleep.”

Well, too bad, because Grian was doing an awfully good job pretending and if Scar refused to see his acting for the truth, that was his problem.

Scar circled Grian for a minute or so, a curious glint in his eyes. He looked like his own cat, if Grian was being honest.

“Right, so,” Scar murmured, “I think I’m going to take you for a ride, actually.”

He stuck his hand out, partially going through Grian’s body.

Grian had no idea what in the world Scar was planning, but he really was going to fall asleep at this point if he didn’t do anything else. Might as well go with whatever Scar had planned.

He didn’t move his arm— he wouldn’t give Scar the win that easily, but he felt out the edges of Scar’s hand in his not-there body, and he pulled.

There was a whoosh of icy air that even he could feel, and then he was there, clinging onto Scar.

“Oh,” Scar said softly. “Did that just work?”

Grian didn’t respond, of course, but he didn’t get kicked off either. For a whole minute, Scar didn’t move a muscle, and Grian still didn’t unattach.

Scar laughed. “Oh, of course it works now. Alright, alright. You did this to yourself, Grian. I’m not liable for any damage you may incur.”

Well, that certainly boded well.

Grian could feel Scar wheeling himself— both of them— around the room and down the hallway as well, round and round like some sort of pseudo-train.

“Can’t get a real rollercoaster out here,” Scar muttered. “Oh well, one day.” He raised his voice again. “Hello Grian. I’m sure you’re excited to be here— well, probably terrified too, but isn’t that the face of an excited man I see you wearing?”

Grian hadn’t had a mirror to see himself in for years. He wouldn’t know.

Scar hummed a song he didn’t know as he spun around. It was a song from something Scar called a Disney movie, he knew, but that didn’t mean Grian had any idea how it actually went.

“I know you’re there, Grian,” Scar sang. “Open your eyes, and I can show you the world.”

A beat.

“Scar,” Grian said. “What the hell are you doing?”

Scar shrieked.

Grian pulled himself away and felt himself melt into the sofa, laughing all the while.

“Don’t scare me like that!” Scar said, stopping just short of the sofa with his hand over his heart. “You’ll give this poor man a heart attack.”

“That’s the plan,” Grian deadpanned. “I’ll make you a ghost like me.”

“I can feel my heart,” Scar complained. “Look what you’ve done, Grian!”

“At least you know the—” Grian waved his hand in the air— “the… the thing works. At the expense of your poor heart.”

“I should’ve stopped this before it got this far,” Scar groused. “How am I supposed to let you out into society now?”

“I’m a ghost,” Grian said. “I don’t think they’ll care. Or see me. Or hear me. Do you know how ghosts in public work, actually?”

Across the room, Jellie meowed indignantly.

“See, this is why you have to get me out,” he said. “Your cat despises me.”

“I wouldn’t say she despises you,” Scar said. “Maybe she just doesn’t like Disney.”

Grian paused. “She has good taste, then,” he said at last. He offered a hand to Jellie, even though they were on opposite sides of the room. “Truce?”

Jellie only meowed back, but really, what had he been expecting?

~~~

Grian left the house on a Sunday.

He didn’t truly leave the house— he doubted he ever would— but he saw the sky, the birds, the trees, and that counted enough for him.

He pulled away from Scar. Not too much, not with the house still tugging him back inside, but enough that if he closed his eyes and listened to the birds sing, he could almost imagine the wind in his hair and the sun on his face.

The sun poured down in brilliant, brightly-golden rays. It was bright, brighter than Grian remembered or had ever seen through the windows. The sky was a vibrant blue all the way to the horizon, painted with tiny blots of cotton-white clouds.

He hadn’t ever seen a sight like this before, not since he was alive. Not even when the house had gotten demolished, as common as that had seemed to be. He had been tied to that damned house for every year of his afterlife. Trapped.

Not anymore.

Grian couldn’t reach the world like the living could, not anymore, but he could certainly pretend. He imagined just how fresh and sharp the air must feel, imagined the grass beneath his feet, imagined the taste of rain on his tongue.

He was content with seeing and hearing though. For now, at least.

The world— this world— had moved on without him, and he was finally getting to see it. What more could he want?

“Like it?” Scar called over to him.

Grian blinked. Scar was quite a distance away from him now; he must have drifted away somehow, when he was too distracted to notice.

“I’m going to get addicted to this, Scar,” he declared. “I’m never going to be stuck inside again. Ever. I’m afraid I’ll be bothering you all day to let me out again.”

Scar laughed. “Maybe that can be arranged,” he agreed. “But let’s go inside now, yeah? I have some grocery shopping to do.” He paused. “If we figure it out, you can even tag along.”

Grian had no idea what a grocery store looked like, but he had watched Scar come back from his short weekend outings— they had gotten more frequent recently— to know well enough. Grocery shopping led to bags of salt and bells and candles and chalk and signs and who knew what else Grian could use.

“I think,” he said, “that might end up being the biggest mistake of your life.”

Scar shook his finger at him. “It’s still my money, mister. I decide what we buy, got it?”

Grian grinned. He couldn’t help but wonder what he would find there, but he was certain he would end up being able to prank Scar with it. And Jellie, of course. Maybe even brighten up his un-life along the way. “You’re on.”