Chapter Text
Your name is Dirk Strider, and you’ve been living in this house alone for four years. Alone perhaps isn’t the most accurate way of putting it, and neither is living, as you have been dead as long as you’ve been ‘alone’ in this house. You have come to realize during that time that living as a ghost is like living in a vacuum. It is a lonely, stagnant existence, one that you’ve come to accept, albeit reluctantly. The loneliness is the hardest part. Sure, you could make yourself visible to the living if its bite gets too strong, and you do make the occasional appearance, but for the most part, you exist in a state of limbo, ignoring the living as they remain ignorant of you. The only people you really want to talk to are gone, anyway.
So today comes as a bit of a surprise when there’s a new family moving into your house; out of curiosity you move to the staircase to see who they are. You lean against the railing just in time to see the front door open, revealing your two new housemates. An elderly woman, bespectacled and enthusiastic, leads the way, her arms overflowing with boxes as her bright green eyes scan the foyer from behind the large wire frames of her glasses. Her long grey hair flows freely down her back, some of it falling forward when she bends over to put down the armful of boxes, bringing her hands to rest on her hips as she looks around the room approvingly. A boy, around sixteen, appears in the doorway, his arms just as full with boxes as his presumed grandmother. His eyes, a darker green than his relative’s, slide around the room, taking note of his new home. A shock of dark hair sits atop his head, hopelessly tousled by god knows what, and a smile spreads across his face, revealing a pair of buck teeth and a charming lilt to his voice when he tells his grandmother, “I say, this house is top-notch!”
His grandmother smiles, glad of his approval. “I’ll bring in some more boxes if you want to look around, Jake,” she says, moving back toward the door. He sputters a moment.
“Unheard of! A feisty youngster such as me should help you out to my fullest potential!” Jake, apparently, announced. He shuffled out past his grandmother, a look of determination on his face. She chuckles, following after her grandson. You scoff at his enthusiasm, pushing away from the railing you’ve been leaning on and heading down the stairs. The pair returns shortly with another load of boxes, continuing the process until their car is empty and the foyer full. As soon as the last box is dropped inside and the front door closed, you watch Jake from your seat on the bottom stair as he catapults himself out of the room, ready to explore the rest of the house. Standing up, you follow after him, curious of his reactions.
He heads upstairs first, his footsteps dull thuds against the carpet as he stomps his way up and pauses at the landing. Almost directly to his left is—was Dave’s room, you correct yourself. Even after four years, it takes you a moment to remember each time that your brothers no longer live here. You never really knew why; you have some half-baked theories about living memories being more vivid than the memories you’ve made since you died, but you haven’t had the chance to make many memorable memories since you died, so your theory remains unproven. Jake, not having your mental hold ups, pushes open the slightly ajar door and steps into the room.
Dave’s room had always been the warmest one in the house, sitting in direct view of the afternoon sun. The same crappy, cheap carpet covered the floor of his room, although it looked much bigger now that there wasn’t all of Dave’s furniture and belongings in it. Jake makes a beeline for the window and looks out of it, his fingers resting lightly against the glass. You move to stand next to him, observing the driveway and the neighbor’s house across the street. The sun has just begun to dip below the horizon, its harsh glare restrained from painful levels due to the opaque lenses of your pointy shades. Satisfied with the view, Jake putters about the room, a small smile playing at the corner of his lips. You look around the room yourself, standing where Dave’s cinderblock and plywood desk used to sit just beneath the window. Jake stands in what was once Dave’s makeshift dark room for his photography, the thought of it and your brother coming with a now familiar pang of heartache. You ignore it, however, as Jake exits the room, and you follow his lead.
You follow Jake away from Dave’s room, stepping out into the upstairs hallway once more. You pass a bathroom on your right, instead heading straight for Bro’s old room, the master suite.
Pushing back the slightly ajar door, Jake steps into the room with you on his heels. Orange light filters into the room from the open doorway, lighting on the wide stretch of empty space.
“This must be the master bedroom,” Jake states, looking around the empty room. The window in Bro’s room sized larger than the windows in Dave’s or your room, which Bro failed to appreciate by covering with blackout curtains. Without them there, the room seemed too bright and too big. By walking too far into the room, you half expected to trigger some sort of smuppet pile falling from the ceiling or something. However, nothing happened as you walk across the room and turn to face Jake. His eyes rove around the room, nodding approvingly. “Grandma will absotively posilutely love it!” Jake exclaims to himself, eyes bright. You can’t help but to smile a little.
When Bro and Dave first moved out, you spent the majority of your time sitting in either Bro’s or Dave’s room, curled in on yourself in the most pathetic manner imaginable and wishing you had some way to either go after them or end it, just some way to leave this fucking house. Of course, there was nothing. No possible way you could leave the place you had died. Left alone, seemingly forever, with the sharp, gnawing pain of loneliness and heartbreak that only a ghost could truly understand. Sometimes watching the living soothed the wound for a time, other times it doubled it, the harsh reality being that ghosts are forever stuck wandering in the space between material and immaterial. You frown to yourself, wishing once again that dying had come with a book or pamphlet or something that answered your questions instead of the trial and error routine you’d been using. During your musings Jake must have left, and you poke your head into the hallway, catching sight of one dark-skinned ankle as he headed downstairs.
Once again on the ground floor, Jake meanders into the kitchen, a relatively standard sized room. Counters run along the perimeter, and a small wooden table sits in the same spot as the crappy, foldable card table that you used to eat breakfast on. The refrigerator is the same, however, shoved against the wall next to the entryway from the foyer. It’s easy picturing the familiar scene of breakfast in the Strider household: you sitting at the aforementioned crappy card table, a bowl of cereal in front of you, Dave, still half asleep, opening the fridge and barely dodging the shitty weaponry stored there, and Bro, flashstepping into the room to grab a cup of black coffee before flashstepping away again, never spilling a single drop of his caffeinated beverage of choice.
Jake examines the room thoroughly, opening and closing the cupboard doors and even poking his head into the empty pantry. You sat on the far counter, the waning sunlight filtering in through the windows behind you warm on your back as you watched him scour the kitchen, until he decided he was ready to explore the next room. Hopping down from your perch, you follow him down the hall, to the first door on the left: the bathroom.
It’s fairly small, with a single sink and a dusty medicine cabinet to the right of the tub. You know from experience about the too-short shower head and the way the water starts to clog up in the tub if one is showering for too long. You vaguely wonder if Jake takes long showers like you used to. You’re interrupted from your thoughts when he suddenly runs out of things to look through in the bathroom, stepping past where you’d been leaning against the door jamb and down the hallway, stopping in front of what was your old room.
You had left the door closed, an old habit that you hadn’t been able to break since you’d died, and Jake barely hesitated before opening the door. The closed shades of the window blocked out most of the fading daylight, but enough residual light made the room bright enough to be seen. The room was originally supposed to be some sort of office or den, but you had converted it into your bedroom when you decided you wanted to stop sharing a room with Dave. Completely empty of furnishings, the only thing Jake really could look through would be the closet positioned against the front right of the room. A sudden bolt of nervousness strikes you. You can’t let him look in your closet. You appear in the doorway just before he reaches for the handle.
“Hey.”
Jake starts, surprise engulfing his features at your sudden appearance. The question lights up his face before he can even ask it.
“Who the dickens are you? How did you get in?” He questions. You try to not to find his strange language patterns endearing. You fail.
“I’m Dirk Strider. I live in the neighborhood,” you lie easily, shifting your weight to lean against the wall. The familiar feel of the slightly scratchy wallpaper against your arm is nostalgic.
“Oh, aces, old chap! I’m Jake English. I’m sure we’ll be bosom buddies in no time!” Jake announces, his offered hand reaching out to clasp yours roughly. You oblige, and the feeling of physical contact after so long is pleasant, almost addictive. A small smile lilts along the corner of your mouth. Jake smiles back, and you find yourself basking in the warmth it exudes.
“So, did you just move in?” you ask the obvious question, feigning ignorance. “Indubitably! My grandmother Jade and I just moved in today, actually! I was just exploring the house. Say, did you know the family that lived here before us?” Jake asks, green eyes wide with curiosity.
“Not the last family, no. But I knew the family before that one,” you supply, failing to mention that it was your family. “They were good people.”
Talking about your family brought the gnawing pain that always lingered to the forefront of your thoughts, consuming your attention for a moment. You remember the complete and utter desperation you felt when they moved out, trying to get their attention before they left for good and ever. You screamed, cried, raged, but they noticed nothing, their impassive faces looking somber only to your trained eyes. The decision to move out had been Bro’s; you hadn’t figured out how to appear to the living at that point, merely being able to manage a flickering visage, and Bro, being who he is, believed you were just a figment of his grief stricken mind. He had told Dave that they needed a fresh start, and so they let you rest the only way a Strider knew how to, short of a strife: by leaving you, or at least the house, alone. They just didn’t realize that you were still there.
Before they left, however, Bro placed your katana on the first step of the staircase, and Dave left a picture he had taken of the three of you together. It wasn’t much, but you had treasured both sword and picture nonetheless, stashing them in your closet. They were your only mementos of the life you once had, and you valued them more highly than anything in existence.
“-rk, old chap?” Jake asked, breaking you out of your reverie. You blink behind your shades, focusing once again on the present.
“Yes?” you ask, pretending that you hadn’t just zoned out awhile. Adjusting to being seen meant less time to be lost in thought, and you inwardly kick yourself for slipping into your head instead of staying alert of the living. Jake, in this case. Dammit, he said something.
“What was that?” you ask hesitantly, and Jake smiles that warm fuzzy smile again. You guiltily enjoy holding his attention.
“D’you always get so lost in your noggin, Dirk? You should be aware at all times! You never know when adventure will strike!” Jake warns, holding his hands up in the shape of two pistols, aiming them around him in a mock representation of his apparent alertness. You smirk, amused by his antics.
“I bet I could break your guard,” you challenge, smug.
“I’d like to see you try, Strider,” Jake responds, leveling you with a smirk as well. You take a moment to size up your opponent, your eyes sliding over his form behind your pointy shades. He stands a few inches shorter than you, but what he lacks in height he makes up for in enthusiasm, his personality making him seem taller than he is. There is muscle beneath the bronze skin, too, and the way he holds himself in a loose, controlled position tells you that he’s no stranger to hand to hand combat. As far as clothing goes, he wears a long-sleeved shirt over a standard t-shirt, a pair of too short shorts and hiking boots. His eyes travel over your frame as well, sizing you up as you do him, and you find yourself relishing his gaze. You snap out of your shameless posturing the moment you notice a slight change in his footing—he’s about to strike. You prepare yourself, not giving away anything on the surface.
Before either of you can land a hit, however, Jake’s grandma walks down the hallway, stopping at the doorway to your room.
“Hey, Jake, are you in—oh, who’s this?” she asks, her confused expression nearly identical to the one Jake made earlier.
“Not to worry, Grandmother Harley! This is my new chum, Dirk. He lives in the neighborhood,” Jake supplies, a bright grin playing across his features. “He showed up rather suddenly, to be honest!”
“So I see!” Jade agrees, seemingly accepting the story. “It’s very nice to meet you, Dirk.” She offers her hand much like her grandson had, her handshake enthusiastic. “Jake’s always been good at making friends, but I didn’t think he’d be bringing any over until the school year started. Would you care to join us for dinner? It won’t be anything fancy, but it would be rude of me to send you home hungry!” She beams at you, and you swear that all these warm smiles aimed at you today are going to give you sunburn or something.
They are incredibly trusting, you think to yourself, unused to the blind trust of strangers. Unused to blind trust in general. You figure that you might as well be visible during dinner, the only difference otherwise being that you’d hover around the house and listen in on their conversations. The former option being considerably less creepy, you decide to take it.
“I suppose I don’t have anything better I could be doing,” you answer truthfully. Jake smiles at your acceptance of the invitation, grin bright and eyes on you. Your stomach flutters a little, unused to so much attention, especially that of someone your age. Or, at the very least, your age when you died.
--
Dinner, as previously expected, is a simple affair, Grandma Jade having ordered a pizza to be delivered. In the meantime, some of the boxes in the foyer had been moved to different rooms—you volunteered your services to help them at least sort through their belongings. You and Jake currently each have a box opened up, the word ‘kitchen’ written in a dark marker along the side. You sift through various utensils and dinnerware, unwrapping and stacking the plates, bowls, and flatware in neat stacks. Jake’s box consists of small appliances, handled with care so as not to break in Jake’s steady grip and placed on the counter space beneath the windows. It’s full dark now, the front lawn barely visible through the windows in the wan moonlight.
“I hope the pizza man gets here soon. I’m starved!” Jake complains, breaking down the box in his hands and sighing dramatically.
“It’ll be any moment now,” you respond, digging through your box and setting out a stack of cups. You’re still not entirely sure why you agreed to stay for dinner in the first place; you never made an attempt to get to know the family who lived here after your bros moved out. Perhaps it felt too sudden at the time, but now you can’t seem to get enough of human interaction.
The doorbell sounds then, breaking up your thoughts as Grandma Harley shuffled down the stairs to the foyer, wallet in hand. She paid him, and Jake grabbed three plates from the top of the stack you made and placed them on the wooden table.
“Dinner is served,” the elderly woman announces, a smile plastered on her face as she brandishes the pizza box. Jake crows at the promise of a full belly and you smirk at his unbridled enthusiasm. You move to sit at the table, plopping down where you would’ve sat had there been a card table in its place, and Jake sits next to you, eyeing the pizza box greedily. You idly note that this is the first food you’ve eaten in nearly four years; you had tried eating food when you had just become a ghost and had found it essentially the same, if a little weird. You honestly had thought that it wouldn’t work, but apparently ghost bodies could handle food like a living body, and, deciding that there’s no real way that you could figure out how this was possible, left it at that.
“So Dirk,” Grandma Jade begins. “You look to be about Jake’s age! Is it possible that you’re sixteen too?”
No, you want to say, but instead you say, “Yes, I am.”
“Golly, we’ll be schoolmates then, chum!” Jake grins, and you find the pizza sauce along the corners of his mouth surprisingly endearing. You then register what he just said, and grimace inwardly. You hadn’t thought of a good reason why you wouldn’t be in school.
“I’m, uh, homeschooled, actually,” you stammer out uncharacteristically. You are grateful that the first thing to come to mind wasn’t stupid. You can work with the homeschool angle.
Jake’s smile falters, as does his grandmother’s.
“Poppycock, I was looking forward to seeing you at school.” Jake’s frown deepens, and you feel bad for the slice of pizza he’s staring at in disappointment. You mostly feel bad for disappointing Jake, though. It surprises you.
“I’m sure I’ll be around all the time,” you say, trying to ease his concerns. “You’ll probably want to kick me out one day.” The half-joke slips out last minute. If only it would be that easy to leave.
But Jake’s smile returns at your words, and you smile back, albeit on a much smaller scale. Grandma Jade seems pleased by all this too, a smile of her own half-hidden behind a slice of pizza.
The meal carries on in a general pattering of conversation between Jake and Jade, the pair trading amusing stories and interesting anecdotes. Their interactions are incredibly different than the ones you used to have with your brothers. Here and now, sharing genuine, sincere emotion is accepted. Expected, really. Neither Jade nor Jake seems to have anything to hide, and the openness is almost refreshing. Not that you had anything to hide, but you had been trained from a young age not to show emotions beyond ironic reasons, and even then they were kept at a minimum. Dave was the most expressive of the three of you. You hoped he still was somewhere.
--
After dinner, you are walked to the front door by Jake and Grandma Harley, the pair of them waving you off as you pretend to leave the premises.
“Don’t be a stranger!” The elderly woman calls out after you.
“Indeed! I expect to see you around soon, Dirk!” Jake adds, waving enthusiastically.
“I’ll be around more often than not,” you assure them, more honest than they realize. With a short hand wave, you turn around and walk down the front path, waiting for them to close the door so you can vanish before you are forcibly returned to the house. You hear the click of the front door just as you’re about to hit the sidewalk. Making sure that no one is watching you, you disappear, closing your eyes and focusing your mind on your room. When you open your eyes again, you’re inside the house, the sounds of Jake and Grandma Jade upstairs surprisingly comforting.
It’s nice to have some life in the house, you decide, smiling to yourself. Maybe this is a good thing.