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"Oh it's perfect," Nico said, a soft gasp escaping him as Thomas drove around the corner. The first look at the house Thomas had inherited was indeed breathtaking. It looked like something straight out of some kind of 'town's richest neighbourhoods' article. It definitely wasn't a street Thomas had ever seen himself living on.
Thomas had never known his great-aunt Patty, so when the lawyer had called about Thomas inheriting a huge house, he'd been reasonably shaken.
The lawyer had originally assumed they would be selling the place, but Thomas and his boyfriend Nico had been starting to imagine what moving in together might be like. They had decided to take it as a sign.
—
"Now this place has a lot of history," The lawyer said, "Some stuff you should be aware of before buying it - it's in a bit of a rough shape."
"In what way?" Thomas asked, sharing a glance with his boyfriend. They were both creatives, and they were willing to learn and put in the work for a dream house, which, from the pictures, seemed like this could easily be.
"Well… there's some… unfortunate history." The lawyer said, "There was a fire in the house in 1834 which lead to the death of a resident. The house was rebuilt, of course, but a ceiling collapse a year later caused the death of a second - the owners sold the house not long after that, which is how it came into your family."
"…Right," Thomas said, frowning, "But it's fine now?"
"Aside from about ten years of wear and tear," The lawyer nodded.
"Are you trying to scare us out of keeping it?" Nico asked, "What does a fire almost two hundred years ago have to do with the house now?"
"Well you see, it's not just the fire-"
"We're gonna keep the house," Thomas said.
"Alright, alright," The lawyer said, holding his hands up, "The only other thing you need to know, is that half of the house was let to the local university and renovated to serve as two student flats. The university pulled out of the contract about ten years ago, but the flats were never taken out, so you could always let them yourselves if need by."
"…Why did the university pull out?" Nico asked with narrowed eyes. Thomas frowned. That, as opposed to everything else the lawyer had said so far, did actually seem important.
"Well… unfortunately, a student passed away, back in 2014."
Thomas sat back on his chair, took a deep breath, and nodded. Okay. So the house had a few deaths. What weird old building didn't?
—
The history of the house had been banished to the back of their minds as Thomas and Nico got everything ready to move. Both of them had been renting, so there wasn't a house they needed to sell. They just needed to clear up their contracts and get their things moved in. Nico's contract had ended first, so he'd moved into Thomas' larger apartment for the last month of his own contract so that they could really move into the new house together.
Maybe it would've been more sensible to start working on the renovations that needed to be done before they had to move in. But they'd have an idealised dream of walking into the house for the first time together in their minds, so they hadn't done a thing with the building since Thomas had inherited it a few months ago.
It was on the end of a terrace of gorgeous houses on a beautiful road far enough from the city centre to be quiet. It had a red painted front door, with a garden filled with wildflowers that was quite overgrown by now and a small, covered porch decorated with empty plant pots. The architecture was Georgian in style, with large, shuttered windows and even brick. Ivy grew up the walls in places, and two chimneys sat atop the pointed roofs, They had been told that at least some of the structure dated back to the 18th century. Most of the interior and some of the outside had needed to be completely remodelled in the 19th century after the fire, but the house still had that beautiful, rustic charm. The kind of character house they never would've been able to afford with their savings.
This truly was a dream come true.
Around the side of the house was a much newer portion that had been built to allow access to the student flats the lawyer had mentioned. They had been given the keys to that door too. it seemed his great aunt, despite living in the rest of the house, hadn't done anything with the flats after the university had stopped letting them. When Thomas walked around to have a peek inside, though, he immediately felt a sense of wrongness wash over him that gave him goosebumps. He'd hardly gotten through the process of unlocking the door before he decided to leave that for another day.
"I thought you were checking out the apartments," Nico said when Thomas arrived back at the van they'd rented barely a minute after they'd left.
"We can explore them later," Thomas shrugged off the feeling easily, "I want to help move our stuff in first."
"Awesome," Nico said with a grin, "Come on then, we got a lotta boxes to move before I have to drive this van back to the rental place."
Thomas hurried up the path to unlock the front door so they could start bringing boxes through. Putting them into the rooms they were labelled for to be unpacked later. They were done in barely two hours, and found themselves stood in the hallway, looking between their new living room, kitchen-diner and curving wooden staircase in amazement.
"This is our new home, huh?" Nico said, grinning and wrapping an arm around Thomas' waist, "Are you happy?"
"Hell yeah I am!"
—-
"Hell yeah I am not!" Yelled a voice from inside the house, startling Janus, who had been happily watching some birds out of one of the dormer windows in the roof. He looked over as Roman materialised through the door.
"Hello Roman," Janus said calmly.
"Have you seen the new living people in this house! Honestly! I thought we would be free for a while after the old woman died, but nooo, a few, what, months? And now there's new ones!" Roman cried, starting to pace. Janus wasn't even watching him, "They brought all their boxes in and everything - and, and, they kissed, how absurd is that!"
"Couples kiss all the time, Roman," Janus said, humming as he watched a blackbird hop through the overgrown grass.
"They're both men," Roman pointed out.
"Oh not this again," Janus rolled his eyes.
"In broad daylight! They were outside, anyone could've seen-"
"Virgil's told us multiple times that things have changed in recent times," Janus pointed out. Roman spluttered, "Just because you're all uptight about your gargantuan crushes on half of us-"
"I'm dead! No-one cares when you're dead-" Roman huffed, crossing his arms, "And that's not the point, the point is they're in our space!"
"And that's a problem… why?"
"Eugh!" Was all the answer he got, before Roman turned around, dramatically charred princess dress swishing around him, and stormed back through the door.
It was mostly ineffective, considering his footsteps didn't make sound on the stairs, but it was the thought that counted.
"Virgil! My dearest, darlingest ghost friend!" Roman called through the house. Most of the residents heard it distantly, though the new owners - who had began to unpack their clothes into Roman's closet - were none the wiser, "Where are you!"
"He's likely in his room," Logan said, startling Roman like he always did when he showed up in that creepy mask and robes. "He got passed through by one of the livings."
Roman nodded, quickly turning around and bolting. It wasn't as though he disliked Logan, exactly, it's just that his resemblance to the grim reaper was uncanny, and it tended to freak Roman out just a little bit no matter how many times Logan had assured him that he wasn't 'death himself'.
Being passed through by living people was extremely uncomfortable for both parties. For some of them, the living would get a specific sensation - for Janus, it was a freezing chill. For Roman it was hot and prickly and the living would smell smoke and Logan would make them smell a host of herbs. The rest of them just gave an odd uncanny feeling. Out of all of them, though, Virgil hated being passed through the most. He hated touch in general - always had.
Patton, in comparison, absolutely loved interacting with living folks. Most of the rumours of hauntings had been his or Roman's fault. While the others tended to keep to themselves, Patton always wanted to make friends. Roman wanted them gone, usually, but that was neither here nor there.
When Roman breezed through the bedrooms on the second floor, he saw the livings unpacking their things into his room. Which was incredibly rude of them because now he'd have to find somewhere else to rest.
He passed through one of them on his way, making him cough and frown and ask if the other smelled smoke. Roman gave a self satisfied smirk as he phased through the next wall.
----
Virgil was hidden under his bed.
He hated people. He'd hated people when he was alive, and he sure as hell hated them when he was dead. He'd thought at first that it would be better when most of them couldn't see him. But it just meant they walked straight through him, making Virgil feel sharp prickles all over his skin and a swooping sensation in his gut that made him feel like he was gonna hurl even though he couldn't anymore.
Of course he had been unlucky enough to be outside and spaced out when the new people arrived. He'd been chilling on the step enjoying some shade and then suddenly he was being walked through. Now he was hiding under the bed like a fucking child.
The twin had been his, when he was alive. So it provided at least a little comfort be be in this room. Hiding underneath it where he'd once stuffed his spare duvet covers and towels before they'd come to clear out his things made him feel safe and unseen and like nothing could get him.
Nothing, of course, except Roman. Who was a force to be reckoned with when he wanted something.
"Virgil!" Roman's voice became clear as he phased through the wall into Virgil's room, "Virgil my love are you in here? Logan said you were passed though - I wanted to make sure you were alright?"
"I'm down here," Virgil grumbled. He already knew from experience that Roman wouldn't stop until he'd found Virgil.
Roman's face appeared at the edge of the bed, and then his voluminous skirts followed as he laid down and shuffled underneath with Virgil. By nature of them being ghosts, Roman didn't need to worry about not fitting under the bed, his clothes simply phased through it.
"Hello, my dark and stormy knight, are you alright?"
"Feel like shit," Virgil mumbled, laying his hand flat between them. Roman took it immediately. Virgil was glad they could touch each other, as ghosts, if only for moments like this.
"Mmm," Roman hummed, "Well, I personally would like to get rid of them."
"I know you would," Virgil said, "Can you not try and kill them though. I don't want this place to be more crowded."
"Awee, you wouldn't want someone else to steal my attention away?"
Virgil rolled his eyes, "Janus already does that just fine."
Roman smirked, "You know no-one could ever steal my heart more than you do."
"Oh shut up," Virgil huffed, flipping him off before going back to holding his hand. That way Roman would know he wasn't really mad. "I'm probably not gonna wanna come out for a bit."
"That's okay!" Roman said, "I'll fight them off extra hard in your stead!"
"I'm sure you will," Virgil said, rolling his eyes fondly, "Go be a knight in shining armour, or whatever."
----
"We'll have to get a survey done for the condition of this place," Nico said as they unpacked their bedroom basics. Their sheets went on the bed, some of their clothes were taken out of the boxes. They'd be moving on to the kitchen pretty soon afterwards, but they'd already planned to get takeout tonight, so they weren't in too much of a rush.
"There's a weird draft in here or something," Thomas mumbled when they made their way downstairs, walking over to the window in the kitchen and waving his hand around in attempt to feel for any gaps it might be coming from, before frowning, "It's super cold over there, but it's not coming from the window."
Nico walked back and forth across the threshold a few times, before nodding, "It's definitely colder in here, but it might just be because of the stone floor or something, I'm sure it's fine."
"Yeah, yeah, you're right," Thomas shook his head, "I'm sure it's fine."
He grabbed one of their boxes - the one containing all their mugs and glasses and began to unload them onto the side, ready to go into a cupboard.
The moment his back was turned, though, one of the mugs went crashing to the ground. Thomas yelped, whipping around to look at the smashed porcelain on the tile.
"I-" He started, as Nico darted for the brush, "I swear I put that in the middle of the counter."
"It's alright, Thomas," Nico said, already sweeping up the shards, "You must've just knocked it when you turned around, accidents happen."
"There's no way," Thomas shook his head. But there was no way he could prove he didn't, so the issue was dropped quickly.
----
Patton stared at the mug on the counter, glancing over at Janus who lounged in the doorway and gave him a nod. Slowly but surely, he began to push one of them towards the edge, and with Janus' help it went crashing down to the floor.
He felt a little bad, but one mug wasn't too much of a price to pay for them to be known, right?
----
Days went by quickly after that.
There was a lot to do in a new house. Unpacking, mostly, as well as figuring out what might need doing before the surveyor could come around in a weeks time. There were also their jobs, of course. Nico's music writing could be done from anywhere, and his producing could be done from home once they had a room set up, but Thomas had needed to seek out local theatres and acting groups to see if anyone was hiring at the moment, so that had kept him quite busy.
Of course, there was the other stuff going on too. The... weirder, stuff.
Sometimes if Thomas left his laptop open on a search bar or blank document, he'd come back to find something written in it - usually questions about the current state of the world. They'd lost two more mugs, and that drafty spot just wouldn't leave him alone.
Thomas had tried to venture into the attic one time. His fingers had turned purple with cold almost the moment he went up there,.
It was early autumn.
The old student apartments had basically become a no-go zone. They gave Thomas the heeby-jeebys. It was like whenever he tried to go in there - the upstairs flat and hallway especially - something made his chest tighten up in knots and angry bees overtake his stomach. Nico didn't seem to feel it, so he'd delegated anything they might need done in there to him.
Which was how Thomas ended up cleaning the windows and sills in the upstairs hallway this particular afternoon. They'd collected a large amount of dust over the years, and the outside of the windows desperately needed cleaning.
In retrospect, maybe leaning out of the window to try and clean the outer panes of glass wasn't the best idea, but he could've sworn that he'd been balanced well.
He didn't really think he was balancing well when he felt himself plummet towards the grass outside, looking up at the window he'd fallen from.
He could've sworn he saw green eyes on a hazy face before he'd lost consciousness.
----
"I didn't mean to kill him, I swear!" Roman yelled, holding up his hands in surrender as the others surrounded him in the upstairs hallway. The sound of ambulance sirens outside was deafening.
"Maybe you haven't," Virgil said, voice quick and tight, "You said you wouldn't."
"They're taking him away," Logan observed from his position next to the window, "Nico too. If he's going to die, I can only assume it won't happen here."
"Dammit I didn't get to see him," Remus said, after running for the window and sticking his head out, "I bet he looked so mangled-"
"Ew," Virgil said, turning away from everyone and beginning to make his way back towards his room.
"Awee, but that means no new friends," Patton said with a sigh.
"You wanted them to be aware of us just as much as the rest of us do, dear, don't lie," Janus said.
"Aware of us yeah! Not dead!" Patton cried, putting a hand over his heart - right over the rip in his shirt, "But if he was dead it would be nice to have a new ghost around! That's all."
"Easy for you to say," Virgil said, having gotten to the wall and turned back.
"Well either way, we've gotten rid of them now," Roman said dusting off his hands. Remus whooped, and that seemed to be good enough for him, "We'll just have to see whether or not he died when they come back for their stuff, won't we?"
----
When Thomas woke up in the hospital a few days after the fall, the first thing he had said to Nico was that he'd been pushed.
It hadn't been the kind of thing he'd thought about saying. It was just the first thing that appeared in his mind, and apparently it warranted communicating. Nico had looked at him like he'd just come back from the dead.
Apparently he had.
His heart had, supposedly, stopped while he was out. Some time between the ambulance arriving and him being rushed to hospital.
But he still insisted he'd been pushed, and when he mentioned the face he'd seen as he fell, Nico had started looking more and more concerned. Enough so that he changed the topic to more professional matters.
Nico had promised that he'd handled everything that had needed handling at the house. The surveyor had been, and Nico had started researching the different contractors they'd need to hire to get everything done and making some spreadsheets with pricing and their savings and the money they would need.
It was all a little much for Thomas to take in right now, considering he was still very much in recovery. He'd asked Nico if they could wait for a few days to start the renovations so he could just rest. Nico had hastily agreed, likely because Thomas absolutely didn't take as much time for himself as he probably should normally. IF the thing that got him to rest was falling out of a second story window, then so be it.
The drive back to the house from the hospital wasn't horribly long or tedious. Just a little tiring. Thomas spent that majority of the time imagining how lovely it would feel to crawl into bed the moment they arrived.
Unfortunately, though, those plans would have to wait, because standing in the front window were two people Thomas absolutely didn't recognise.
"Everything okay?" Nico asked as he parked in their driveway. He didn't seem to think there was anything wrong, which set Thomas' teeth on edge.
"I- do you not see them?" He asked, pointing to the window. He locked eyes with one of them - round glasses, curly brown hair - and their eyes widened before they ran off, "There's people in our house."
"There's... what do you mean there's people in our house - Thomas?"
Thomas didn't stay in the car long enough to answer, though, already throwing the door open and storming up the path to their front door. He fumbled with the keys, and when he finally managed to get the door open, he stepped inside to be greeted by a hallway full of six very different looking people.
The person in front was the one he'd seen through the window. He looked... fairly normal, and all the others must've gathered around him when he'd run in here. He would've seemed like a completely normal middle aged guy, if it weren't for the gruesome looking wounds on his chest that made Thomas feel a little sick to look at.
In fact. All of these people were... strange, in one way or another.
The one closest to the first wore what Thomas could only describe as peasants garb, topped with a black wool cloak. That one's fingers were frostbitten, and half of his face seemed to be covered in a birthmark. His eyes were two different colours, and though he was clearly a young adult, he was small and looked like he was starving. Just behind him was a pair who looked nearly identical, though one of them was wearing a red and gold dress that must've once been beautiful, but now seemed to be half destroyed by charring. The other was wearing fairly formal clothes in a completely informal way - the waistcoat being half unbuttoned and the mud splattered trousers only half tucked into the boots.
Looming behind them was someone who at first glance Thomas though might have been the grim reaper. On a second glance, he realised the person was actually just in full robes, a hood and a hat and a pointed beak mask that took Thomas back to the history classes he'd mostly slept through. He looked like a plague doctor, Thomas Realised.
And finally, next to the one in the dress, stood someone who could easily be alive, if it weren't for his ashy grey skin. He wore baggy clothes - a hoodie and some old, ripped up jeans. His hair was dyed purple, with grown out roots, and his eyes had bags under them that made Thomas wonder if he had slept at all in days. He looked like he was still college aged.
Thomas' mind flashed back to the Lawyer's words. A fire in the 1800s, a student dead in their dorm....
"What the ..." Thomas said quietly, looking over the random group, "Who are you all?"
One of them screeched - the one in the charred dress - and the tired one covered his ears and disappeared through a wall. The entire group scattered.
"Nico!" Thomas called, wondering if he'd started hallucinating because of his injury, or something, "I think I gotta go back to the hospital-"