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It was another day at Woodstone and Trevor was staring down another thing on a table, considering trying to move it.
This time, it was Jay's giant bag of nerd dice. Not the easiest thing to move, but he figured he had spent enough time building up to it by now.
Besides, he found that he got a little stronger the more he used his power. It took way too long to build up to anything actually meaningful, but he did feel texting getting a little easier. And he was bored enough to test it out on an actual object even though Sam and Jay were around to move things.
He was just gearing up to move the water bottle when Alberta and Hetty walked into the room, deep in conversation. They stopped when they saw him.
"What on earth are you doing?" Hetty asked, watching as he bounced around, trying to warm up.
"I'm trying to move this bag," he explained.
"You know you can just get Sam to do it for you, right?" Alberta said. "Although I don't know what you would need Jay's dice for. You never play D&D with us."
Trevor sighed. He wasn't really ready to explain this experiment to the others, especially because he would look like an idiot if it failed, but he knew they wouldn't stop asking. "We figured out that my power gets stronger when I use it more often. I'm trying to test it."
"Right," Alberta said knowingly. "You and Pete figured that out?"
God, he was losing his touch. Had he really just referred to himself and Pete as a single entity? Trevor would never have done that when he was alive.
But apparently things changed when you were a ghost. Trevor definitely wouldn't have dated someone like Pete when he was alive either, but they'd been together for a little while now and it was fine. Nice, actually.
That aside, he had bigger things to deal with. He looked at the bag one last time, then began focusing all his energy on trying to touch it.
It turned out he had gotten stronger after all. Hetty and Alberta both started cheering when he pushed the bag off the table in record time.
"Hell yeah! T-Money!" he crowed, making the symbol with his hands.
As he stood there, pride washing over him, Trevor knew things were only going to get better from here.
Everyone knew about the bag by the end of the day. It was one of those things that brought the ghosts together, no matter how they acted the rest of the time.
Honestly, Trevor was on top of the world. He had outdone himself, the others were impressed, and Pete was smiling at him across the room. What more could he want?
He was still coasting on the high later that night, the only person awake besides Thor and Hetty, who were arguing over what to watch.
"Bodices and Barons," Hetty said firmly. "The new episode comes out tomorrow and I'd like to have the last one fresh in my mind."
"You just want to watch baron and mistress again," Thor accused. "New episode of Skank Wars come out last night. Thor want to watch."
"Trevor?" Hetty glanced at him imperiously.
Well, that was his cue. He was setting up Bodices and Barons when Thor came to stand right in front of him.
"Please, Trevor. No one want to watch that."
Thor did have a point. Trevor wasn't huge on watching a bunch of women in long dresses stare at people across a room. He abruptly switched to searching for Thor's show instead.
Hetty glared at him and he automatically went to look for her shoe instead. But then Thor kept looking at him with sad eyes, and it worked way too well for some reason.
It took way too long before they mutually agreed on a show. Trevor sank into his chair, suddenly exhausted, as Bodybuilder Wives started playing.
That was nothing new. He was usually tired after using his powers. It happened to a lot of the ghosts.
Except this time, it wasn't going away.
When Thor and Hetty finally decided it was time to go to bed, Trevor barely managed to drag himself back to his room. Pete was asleep in the bed, lying on his back as always although it wasn't great for his sleep apnea.
Whatever. Trevor was used to the noise by now.
He climbed into bed, careful not to jostle Pete, and passed out almost the second his head hit the pillow.
Trevor usually woke up after Pete finished watching the sunrise, just in time to go down and smell breakfast. But the next morning, Pete had to shake him awake.
"What?" he grumbled, sitting up in bed.
"I didn't want you to miss breakfast," Pete said, his cheer undeterred as always. "Are you okay? You don't usually sleep in this late."
"I'm fine," Trevor said. He forced himself to stand up. "I'm just tired."
Pete frowned. "Does using your power take more effort for big things? Maybe you shouldn't be doing that."
Absolutely not. Trevor wasn't even going to start down that road. His powers were the one thing the other ghosts actually needed him for. No way was he giving up that kind of leverage.
"It's not that. I just got to bed kind of late last night. Let's go smell breakfast."
Pete looked like he wanted to argue, but he just stood up instead.
In the kitchen, Trevor forced a smile on his face, trying to ignore the way his muscles were burning. That definitely wasn't supposed to happen to ghosts. Or at least, it hadn't happened to him before.
Maybe Pete had a point. Maybe this new power came with a price.
But Trevor was pretty good about avoiding that kind of thing. So he agreed when Hetty asked him to flip the pages in her book later. And when Alberta wanted him to open her magazine to a picture of Jason Momoa. And when Sam asked him to put a movie on for the others that night, even though no one could agree on what to watch for at least half an hour.
When he got back to his room that night, he collapsed into bed. He was almost asleep when he felt Pete's hand around his wrist.
"Good night," he mumbled.
Pete ran his thumb over what used to be Trevor's pulse point. "Are you sure you're okay?"
"I'm fine," he said.
He thought Pete might have said something in response, but he was out too quickly to know for sure.
Waking up the next morning was even worse. It felt like electricity was crackling in his bones, sending shocks of pain through his limbs.
"Trevor," Pete said slowly, sitting on the edge of the bed. "You look terrible."
Ouch. Trevor tried to be offended, but all he felt was exhaustion. It was swirling through him like a thick fog.
"It's your power, isn't it?" Pete put a hand on his leg. "You should rest. I can go tell the others you won't be able to help them today."
Over his dead body. Well, not exactly, but the point still stood.
"Dude, I'm fine," he said. "Chill out. Besides, I already told Isaac that I'd find him some video essays about how Hamilton was a piece of shit. Can't back out of that now."
Pete took a deep breath, like he was trying to keep his cool. "I'm worried about you. Don't hurt yourself just because you want to prove a point."
"What point? That I'm freaking awesome? Everyone already knows that. This just makes it even clearer." Trevor got out of bed, turning away from Pete so he couldn't tell how bad it hurt to move. "I have nothing to prove to anyone."
He didn't want to have this argument. Hell, he didn't even want to go downstairs. A tiny part of Trevor almost wished that Pete would insist he get back into bed and stay there for the rest of the day.
But he didn't. So Trevor left for the kitchen, refusing to look back.
A few hours later, Trevor was too tired to even keep pretending that Pete hadn't been right.
Typing into the search bar for Isaac once was bad enough. But each time he had to do it again, Trevor felt everything spin for a few seconds, long enough that he almost grabbed on to the table for balance.
And then Hetty asked him to flip pages for her again. The break he got between every movement wasn't anywhere near long enough to recover.
Pete started hovering somewhere around that time. He said he was just watching the trees, but Trevor caught him glancing over worriedly every time it took more than a moment to turn the page. Which was pretty often.
Then he got up to go change the channel on the TV. Most of the others were crowded around, finally having settled on a choice for once.
Trevor went to punch in the numbers. Just two numbers. Compared to everything else he had done, that was nothing.
But this time, when he finished, he couldn't even manage the energy to sit down. It felt like the world had suddenly grown denser, like he was moving through water just trying to breathe.
And then it didn't matter. Because everything went black.
Trevor blinked his eyes open to find everyone standing over him, looking concerned. Even Sam was there. She hadn't been there before.
"Let's give him some space," Pete said, although he made no move to back away.
Trevor slowly sat up. "No, it's fine. I'm fine."
"You passed out, Trevor," Sam said. She tucked her hair nervously behind her ear. "We didn't know what happened to you."
He didn't even know what to say to that. The other ghosts were watching him with stricken looks. It was kind of weird. They never usually looked so guilty, even when it was warranted.
"You need to rest," Pete said firmly.
There was no arguing with him when he got like that. So Trevor sat there until he felt well enough to stand, then leaned on Pete the whole way back up to their room.
"Why did you do that?" Pete asked, sounding upset, the minute Trevor was lying in bed. "You didn't have to let it go so far."
"I know," he said quietly. "I just - I got caught up in it. Everyone liked me so much."
"What are you talking about? We always like you."
Trevor shrugged. "I don't know. I get how it is. We all tolerate each other. But everyone liked me so much when I could do things for them."
Pete's face softened. He reached out and put his hand on Trevor's shoulder. "All of us like you. Not just because of your power."
"Yeah, okay." He didn't even try to make it sound like he agreed.
"No, I'm serious. Even Hetty at least respects that you were a capitalist." Pete made a slight face at that, but moved past it quickly. "The point is, you don't have to be useful for us to care about you. No one else has to. The rules aren't different for you."
Trevor wanted to argue. He tried desperately to find something kind of flaw in what Pete had said, but he came up empty time and time again.
"I was really worried," Pete admitted quietly in the silence. "We didn't know what happened to you. No one knew that ghosts could pass out."
Okay, well, now Trevor felt bad. He put a hand over Pete's. "I'm okay. Seriously. I'll be fine once I sleep it off."
"Why do I get the sense that you've said that to people before?"
Trevor just gave him a look. Pete rolled his eyes and got up, squeezing Trevor's shoulder as he did. "I'll let you rest."
Fuck it. Trevor normally hated seeming clingy, but he could make an exception just this once. "You want to stay?"
Pete sat back down as quickly as he had stood up. "Yeah." Man, he really didn't even try to play it cool.
But later that day, sitting in bed beside Pete in the kind of comfortable silence that only came after knowing someone so long, Trevor had to admit that he was wrong. Maybe he really didn't have to be useful to be loved.