Chapter Text
Haunted houses have never been his specialty.
He never deals with ghosts and ghouls. Only with djinn, goblins, and other city dwellers. These are rural supernaturals. Folktales and myths.
Loners and creepers. Isolated beings that thrive on the eerie silence of empty spaces.
In other words, he’s out of his depths. Still, he kept coming across the stories on the news, and he couldn’t just ignore it.
People gone missing. Body parts showing up at the road going out of town.
It’s been happening for years, and Jake is surprised people still choose to live here.
He’s never been in such a small town before. At barely five thousand inhabitants, the whole town must realize that someone’s gone missing.
This time, it’s three people in the span of two months. From what he’s overheard around town, it sounds like it’s all connected to this house.
The last guy who went missing, Logan, was apparently going to spend the night in the house, and nobody has seen him since. The police have been at the house, which has been abandoned for decades, but they haven’t found anything at all.
So here he is, ducking under the police tape and moving up the stairs to the front porch. It should be one of those cozy houses you see in romantic comedies. Grand and pretty. Littered with windows and painted what was once a crisp white, but has not become a washed out blueish color.
The door is ajar, and the lock has been broken off the doorframe, so Jake pushes it open and walks inside. Leaving behind the sunlight and chirping of the birds, he steps into a dark and cold room. The sun still brightens the room, even though everything seems to be made of dark woods, covered in a sheen of dust.
The floor looks almost polished in the center of the room. The police probably, walking around so much that the floorboards are almost dust free in places.
There is an old couch and chairs around a small table. A large painting of a garden is hung above the fireplace.
There’s nothing in the room that stands out to him, so he moves to the next, glancing around to see if there are any hints in the kitchen. He’s looking for any sign of anything supernatural. Piles of sticks, wet patches, shiny objects. Anything to point him towards why the police can’t find the bodies. He steps further into the dining room, which is softly lit with the light coming from the backside of the house. It feels calm and serene, so he turns back around.
Maybe he’ll have better luck on the second floor.
He’s barely put his foot on the first step as he feels chills run down his shoulders.
Jackpot.
He continues climbing the stairs slowly, looking around and keeping an eye on the bottom of the stairs, just in case something should pop up.
He’s made it about halfway up before he hears a voice.
“You know I'll just be back again. There’s no need to hide out like this.”
It doesn’t sound haunted. There’s no echo to it. It just sounds like a guy.
“You’re really going to be difficult about this? I’m here to be on your side.” The voice continues. It’s coming from the room just across the top of the stairs. Someone is moving in there, and there’s tapping of a foot. Jake moves closer, slowly and quietly.
It’s a guy. He’s probably about Jake’s age, if not younger, and he’s clearly talking to himself.
“It’s gotta stop, and you know that…”
Silence.
“Alright, fine. Give me a minute, and then let’s see who’s laughing,” he says. He’s backing towards the door now, where Jake is standing, and Jake doesn’t move. It takes him three and a half steps to back right into Jake’s chest. The guy jumps a little and turns with a gasp.
“Who are you?” he asks. He’s got messy black hair, and he looks like he hasn’t slept in days.
“Why are you talking to yourself?” Jake counters.
“I’m talking to the ghosts.” He says it immediately, like it should be obvious that he’s not just a crazy guy, but someone talking to actual beings that can’t be seen. Jake scoffs.
“Mhm…” Jake pushes past him and walks further into the room. There’s an uneasy feeling in the pit of his stomach that he can’t quite name. A sigh comes from behind him as he looks around the room. There are grand windows facing the front of the house, and a bed on the left-hand side of the room. An old desk and a bookshelf are on the right.
“What are you doing here?” The guy asks.
“I could ask you the same,” Jake counters. He’s not about to tell him. He could be some freak who likes to chase ghosts, getting himself in trouble, being days or seconds from becoming the next victim himself.
“Well…” the guy trails off.
“Talking to the ghosts. Did you lose someone close to you?” Jake asks then, looking at the pictures on the desk. The faces of the people are burned off, leaving a black, charred mark around their heads. He picks it up, and the boy shifts in his peripheral, stepping closer. Jake glances at him, and he stops in his tracks.
Don’t.
He doesn’t really mean to do it, but he knows he can be intimidating. Sometimes, it’s useful, but right now, he’s aiming at this scrawny boy who looks a little lost and skittish, and he probably doesn’t deserve that.
“Um... You shouldn’t mess with that,” the guy says. He really looks like he’s been up for days. There are dark patches around his eyes, and his skin is pale. There’s almost a haunted look in his eyes, even though he looks awake and alive. He might have been camping out here all night, hoping to see something. If he’s into the supernatural, maybe trying to get a photo of something, he’d probably be dumb enough to try that. But then again, he’s still alive, so…
“You know not to come here at night right?” Jake asks, just to make sure.
“Hah.” the guy scoffs. It pulls a smile to the guys face as he puts his hands in his pockets. It kinda brightens his face, and he looks handsome for a few seconds, his blue eyes brightening his whole face. “Do you? What are you doing here anyway?” he asks back. He didn’t actually answer, but he got the point across. That’s a bad idea.
Jake smiles a little. The guy is wearing an old faded t-shirt and jeans.
“I came during the day, didn't I?” Jake says, looking around the room again. He walks towards the window and the boy startles a little, walking quickly over to where Jake is.
He grabs Jake's elbow and pulls him slowly from the window while staring out at the sky.
He’s cold. Really cold. So much so that Jake can feel it through his bomber jacket. It might not be anything, the room is chilly, and Jake is never cold. Perks of being able to breathe fire. But why would the guy be so chilled unless he’s been in here for hours?
“I can't look outside?” Jake asks. He knows he’s not being very friendly to this guy, but he doesn’t have the energy for it. He hasn’t really been friendly or polite to strangers since his grandpa died.
“I just… not that window,” the guy says. He’s frowning now, lips slightly turned down as his eyes flick across the glass.
“Let go of me,” Jake says.
He flinches back, putting his hands in his pockets again. He's not a ghost, right? He wouldn't be able to touch him if that were the case. That’s what Jake’s research has indicated at least. But he’s cold, and he looks almost half dead, so why not test it?
“I'm here to get rid of them,” Jake confesses, just to see if the guy will give him a reaction. He blinks, and his eyes go a little wider.
“Oh… Oh, really?” he frowns now.
Jake frowns back. Maybe he was wrong about the boy.
“They kill people,” he says, feeling the anger flare up in him. He takes a deep breath and releases it slowly. He notices that he’s clenching his jaw and stops. He’s met several people in the city who have been infatuated with the idea of the supernatural. They think it’s romantic or cool to see if they can find things that other people don’t believe are real. Things that are dangerous. Things that kill.
“Yeah. I mean, good. I just… You seemed more like you'd be here to… I don't know. Piss off the otherworldly and prove that it's nothing to be afraid of,” The guy smiles a tight apologetic smile as he shrugs. Jake raises a brow and folds his arms. Oh, they’re just being honest now?
“You look like you've been camping here all night, so... Is that the case?” he shoots back.
“No? What? I look like…” he scoffs. “I just have trouble sleeping,” he says. His face goes through what seems like five emotions before it settles into a scowl. It makes him seem more alive, and it highlights his good features. The shape of his mouth and the slope of his nose. His handsome brows and the line of his jaw.
“Insomnia?” Jake asks. The guy just scoffs again, scowling harder, and it makes Jake smile just barely.
“You don't have to tell me,” he says.
“Fine! Good. It's none of your business anyway.” The guy folds his arms as well now, mimicking Jake’s posture.
“I know,” Jake says before he moves past the guy and into the hallway again.
“Hey, where are you going?” The guy calls after him. The floorboards creak as he moves after him.
“To check the rest of the house out.” There are burn marks on the floor and left wall in the hallway, and it gets colder the further down the hall he goes. Jackpot.
“No, no, no, no." The guy grabs Jake's arm again, and Jake glares back at him. He’s trying not to use his dragon powers, but he’s not sure he succeeds as the guy pulls back immediately.
“No?” Jake questions. The guy looks down the hallway where Jake was going before his eyes find Jake again. He swallows.
“It’s just… I wouldn’t wanna go down there.”
“Well you don’t have to,” Jake says and turns back, continuing down the hall. He's here for a reason, and it’s not to tiptoe around the place. It's to find ghosts and get rid of them.
“Wait… you… Oh shoot," the guy behind him whispers.
Jake tries a door on his left, but it doesn't budge. It must be locked then. He can try again later, when the guy isn’t here to stop him from kicking the door down. He tries the next door instead, and it glides open the second he turns the knob.
This is it then.
The guy is still standing in the hallway, looking after him. Jake looks back at him and smiles a little before stepping into the room. It's large and cute. It's brighter and cleaner here than the rest of the house, like someone has come in and cleaned this room specifically. Jake takes two steps, barely making it past the threshold, before he hears the fast steps of the guy coming after him.
“Wait,” he says. He’s inside the room now, pulling on Jake's arm again. Jake jerks his arm back.
“Hey, you gotta-” he starts, when the door slams shut behind the guy.
“Oh shit,” the guy whispers.
The room seems to darken then, and Jake pulls out the ecto-light and snaps it, shaking it in his hand. He's not worried, but the guy seems stressed. He’s turning around, looking around the darkening room, eyes darting everywhere.
“We need to get out of here,” he tells Jake
“Scared of ghosts?” Jake wonders as the room grows even darker. The light in his hand starts to glow brighter, and suddenly, it’s the main light source in the room. The guy moves to the window and tears the curtains down. A bloody handprint is on the window, and barely any light filters in through the window.
“Not particularly, but you should be," he tells Jake. His voice is calmer than Jake would have expected.
“Hmm,” Jake says. He brings out another light and snaps it too, handing it over to the guy. The guy looks over to him, taking it on instinct, it seems like. Then, he’s frowning at the light in his hand before his face goes slack again.
“Stay still,” the guy says, and Jake scoffs before he feels the cold breath on the skin below his ear, making the hair of his neck stand on end. A slight whisper goes across his shoulder and into his ear.
“Leave…”
“Don’t move. Stand still,” the guy says. His eyes look green in the glow of the glowsticks.
Jake doesn't even turn. He pulls the contraption from his belt and holds it behind his back.
“Ma’am, let us go. Yvonne told me what the problem is, and…” A hiss goes through the air as Jake presses the button on the device. The cold presence behind him disappears.
The guy stares at him.
“What did you do?”
Jake pulls out the device from behind his back.
“Damn, I didn't think that would actually work," he says, looking at the small contraption in his hand. It’s shaped like a tube, with a button on the top. The guy scoffs.
“What? Where did you get that?” he asks, mouth hanging open in what must be shock.
“At Fenton’s. I didn’t think it would actually do anything,” Jake responds.
“You went to Fenton works?" The guy accuses, his voice pitched slightly higher.
“Yeah. I don’t usually deal with the dead,” Jake tells him. He doesn’t. And so he knew he needed help. The Fentons are the most acclaimed ghost hunter business in the country, so of course he contacted them and asked for tips.
“You know that thing can only hold three spirits, right?" the guy accuses.
“And you know that because?” Jake counters.
“It says on the package. Besides, there’s at least twenty here,” he tells Jake. Jake feels another chill go up his spine.
“Twenty? How do you know?”
“I… sense them,” the boy says. He looks tired, haunted, as he says it. And maybe he is. Maybe he really can tell that there are so many ghosts here. No matter the fact, twenty is too many to take on at once. At least when he’s only got two open slots.
“So we should get out of here,” Jake concludes.
"That's what I’ve been saying all along,” the guy groans.
Jake starts to search the room for another exit, and the boy keeps close to him.
“If we spread out, it will go faster," Jake says.
“If we spread out, they will separate us to make us easier targets,” he resorts. Jake looks up at him and sees the frown on the guy's face as he scans the room.
“Can you see them?" he wonders. More out of curiosity than anything. The guy’s jaw flexes. His eyes are almost glowing in the green light.
“Sometimes…” he says. Jake continues swiping the room.
“What are you doing down there anyway? We should be looking for a door out,” the boy says. Jake makes a noncommittal sound as he continues moving his fingers along the carved wood on the fireplace.
“If you’re so worried about being in here, you could try the main door,” Jake says.
“Mhm, that’s not really an option right now,” the boy says.
“No?” Jake wonders, moving on to check the moldings along the floor.
“It’s seeping blood,” he responds. Jake presses lightly on the wood, and it gives way, and part of the wall swings inwards.
“What? How did you know that was there?” the guy wonders.
“There was a door here on the blueprints of the house. Lucky for us that it wasn’t just closed up by bricks,” Jake tells him.
“Lucky…” the boy repeats. Jake grabs his light and turns to look at the door. A dark liquid seeps slowly towards them. It’s glistening bronze and green in the light.
“Let’s go,” Jake says, crouching through the small opening and holding the door for the other guy to come through. He helps him to his feet and shuts the small door. This room is lit up normally, so Jake puts the ectolight in his pocket.
“You’ve done this a while, haven’t you?” the guy asks. If only he knew.
“Sure. So have you, since you’re not freaking out by bleeding doors and ghosts popping up everywhere,” Jake guesses. The guy doesn’t try to deny it. How old could he be anyway? And how did he start seeing ghosts?
The room they’re in looks like a tea room. There’s a few bookcases, some chairs, a table, and a couch in here. All dusty and old.
“So you agree that we should get the hell out of here? I think we’re moving somewhere they don’t like that much,” the guy says, still holding his light in his hand.
“Well, that’s the goal, so I guess our paths…” are splitting. The house rumbles, cutting off his sentence. A green mark on the carpet starts to bubble and extend upwards. Jake sighs.
Fuck. That’s the last thing he needs right now.
“Wh… What is that?” the guy wonders, holding his green light out to the monster that is coming out of the carpet.
It’s a bog wanderer. It shouldn’t be here. There are no bogs or swamps around. No musky sewer systems either. It must be a strong one if it came out of a stain on a carpet.
Jake pulls the salt from his pocket. He’d heard that salt has cleansing powers and that ghosts don’t like it. Lucky for him, because it’s one of the things that kills bog wanderers. He unscrews the cap and gathers some in his hand.
“It’s just a bog wanderer. It shouldn’t be in here, though. That’s mainly why I’m here. I’m not usually into this spiritworld kinda mythos,” he says. He holds the salt over the growing monster. Its eyes have started to take form, and it reaches a long, spindly arm out to grab at Jake’s leg. He lets the salt rain down on the creature, and it shrieks and bubbles as it melts away.
“This is more like my thing. Underworld creatures and magical societies. Unfortunately, both have started popping up in the area around this house. So I’m here to fix it,” Jake says, screwing the cap back on the salt. He turns to see the guy standing with his hand covering the lower half of his face. The bog wanderers smell horrible, and it almost makes Jake smile.
“We should help each other. I’m here to fix the ghost problem. It’s just… They’re too many. I can’t do anything today. I need some rest and some more equipment first,” the guy says.
“I usually work alone,” Jake answers.
He hasn’t worked with anyone since his grandpa died.
“So do I, but I know ghosts, and you clearly know whatever the fuck that was,” the guy tries again. “This is my current mission as well. Let’s team up, it might be faster,” the guy says, he holds his hand out to Jake.
“My name’s Danny,” he says. Jake looks at his hand. He shouldn’t say yes, but he should be heading back to the city pretty soon. It’s crawling with underground creatures, and when he’s not there to fix it, nobody is.
“Jake,” he says and grabs his hand, shaking it. There’s a loud creak, and then gravity takes them as the floor falls away. There was nothing to indicate that the floors were rotted or giving way, but they fall fast and land hard. Danny falls back, stumbling and landing on his ass. Jake tumbles forward, landing on his hands and knees.
When he looks up, expecting splinted wood and dust to be disrupting his view, he sees nothing at all. The ceiling is still intact.
He gets to his feet and goes to reach a hand out to Danny, helping pull him up again.
“You okay?” Jake asks. They’re in the downstairs foyer now.
“Yeah, fine,” Danny says with a slight grimace. It’s not at all convincing. There’s a screeching sound, and Jake barely has a second to register something big moving towards them before he pushes Danny to the side. He falls again, but he’s out of the way as a piano smacks against Jake, pushing him hard into the wall. He tries to push back, but there’s more than just the weight of the piano pushing against him.
Burning hot pain flares up from where it hit his chest. His ribs are definitely bruised, if not broken, and he closes his eyes hard against the pain. Something wheezes near his face, and when he opens his eyes, he feels a sharp sting against his left shoulder and right forearm. There’s something there. Small and see-through with a large, wide-open mouth full of sharp teeth. It seems to unhinge its jaw and bites down again just as a green light flashes and the thing shrieks and dissolves into thin air.
He feels the sting of the bite turn warm as blood trickles down his shoulder. He tries to push the piano away from himself, and pain sears through his ribs and chest. They’re definitely broken. Thankfully, he’s got accelerated healing, so he should be feeling better in a few days.
Danny comes over and helps him, and together they move the piano far enough that Jake can get out. He holds his arm to his ribs, the burn getting stronger each time he breathes in. He groans as his body aches. Those motherfuckers bit him, and the sting turns to an icy feeling as his vision darkens a little at the corners.
“Shit, that’s not good,” Danny mumbles as his hand comes off red from trying to keep Jake upright.
“I’ll be fine,” Jake grits out.
“Guess they thought you looked like a snack,” Danny mumbles. Jake frowns up at him.
What the fuck kinda thing to say is that?
Danny lets go of Jake, and his cheeks tint red as he looks away.
“Sorry,” he mumbles.
“They’re spirits?” Jake asks, ignoring the faint blush.
“Yeah.”
“And they eat people?” Jake asks. He tries to move, walking around the piano, but it feels like his blood sugar drops, and he stumbles as his vision swims. Danny is there again in a second, holding him up, and the pressure on his ribs makes him groan in pain.
“No.” He says. “They just hurt you. They want you to die, but they don’t eat you. They just want friends.”
Jake chuckles coldly at that.
“Well, I’m not planning on dying, so let’s get out of here,” Jake says. His voice is strained from the pain. His head starts hurting, and his legs feel weaker.
“Yeah, I’ve got you,” Danny says. He drapes Jake’s arm over his shoulders and helps him move towards the door to the back porch. Danny pushes the door open, and Jake feels almost drugged as they make it out into the warm afternoon air. The backyard is just as forsaken and rough as the rest of the house. Jake's eyes scan the treeline, and he almost halts when he sees something dark between the trees next to the slide. His heart feels like ice as he blinks, and the creature doesn’t disappear, just stares back at him.
A soul-wrencher. They need to get away from here. Immediately.
“Fuck, this place is infested. Let’s get out of here. Now,” Jake says.
“Hm?” Danny asks, looking over to the trees where Jake is staring. He halts as he sees it.
“What is that?” he asks.
“Very bad, so let’s go,” Jake says, pulling Danny around towards the front of the house.
“Are we just leaving it there?” Danny asks then.
“Yeah. It’ll wait til someone comes near it. It can’t move out of the shadows. We’ll be back for it later,” he groans as pain flares out from his shoulder.
Danny walks them over to a car that is there and opens the door on the driver's side. Then he fumbles through his pockets for the key. His hands have gotten more bloody now, and he’s getting it everywhere. It’s also soaked through his shirt on his shoulder.
“Shit, sorry,” Jake mumbles as he pulls his jacket off and folds it around his forearm. Danny stops and just stares at him for a second as he keeps folding the fabric before he presses it to his shoulder to stop his blood from staining everything. He gets in the car, and Danny scrambles to sit down in the driver's seat.
“Are you okay?” Jake asks.
“Yeah, you?” Danny asks back, turning the key in the ignition and putting his seatbelt on. Jake leans his head back and groans. His mind feels like it’s swimming, and chills run along his body.
“Fine,” he says. It isn’t until Danny grabs the steering wheel that Jake sees that he also got bit. There are angry red marks from the teeth where they pierced the skin. It’s still trickling blood, and it drips off his elbow as he steers the car out on the road back towards town.
“You don’t look fine Jake,” Danny comments. He’s drumming his finger against his lip as he thinks. Jake feels absolutely horrible. His whole body aches.
“Shit, I don’t know what’s doing it. They’re not poisonous, right? Do you know?” he asks. His ribs are just a dull pulsing beneath all the new aches and sensations.
“No, they’re not. But they’re dead creatures. So it usually takes a toll on people,” Danny says and looks over to Jake with a frown.
“You’re alright?” Jake asks back, looking at the way the blood trickles off Danny’s elbow.
“I’m used to it,” Danny says with a half-hearted smile.
“Take a right here,” Jake says, finally registering where they are.
“Hmm, why?” Danny frowns.
“This is the way to the motel. I’ve got a first aid kit there,” Jake says.
“Hah. That’s funny. You’re going to the hospital,” Danny tells him. He’s watching the road, still only one hand on the steering wheel.
“No,” Jake says, and grabs the wheel, turning it for him. The car lurches as Danny presses the brakes.
“What the hell are you doing?” he raises his voice. The car does turn halfway onto the street, and Danny has no choice but to make the turn if they’re going to stay on the road.
“It’s not that bad. Just a scratch,” Jake tells him. It’s three small bites. As long as the headache and swimming vision stop, he’ll be fine.
“You’re bleeding and got crushed by a piano against the wall,” Danny reminds him.
“Huh, well… I’m used to it,” Jake echoes. It makes Danny scoff.
“You’re one of those huh?” Danny says.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Jake doesn’t snap the words. They’re icy cold with anger. He’s been worse at controlling his anger since… Everything. And nobody has really pissed him off since then, except for evil creatures that was supposed to die anyway.
“Reckless,” Danny says. “Flying solo. Not a care in the world.”
It’s quiet for a while as Danny drives them towards the motel just out of town.
“I guess,” Jake says. He’s breathing evenly, and he’s getting more and more distracted by the coldness in his chest, letting the fire in him fade to slight embers. “It wasn’t always like that,” he confesses.
They make it to the motel, and once inside the room, he pulls out the first aid kit. He pulls on Danny’s wrist first, getting him to sit down at the table while Jake disinfects it and wraps a bandage around it. Jake starts to try and fix his own arm, but Danny takes over almost immediately.
“Here, let me,” he says. It’s strange to have someone help him again, and his mind wanders as Danny cleans the wound and bandages it. He hasn’t been patched up by someone since the cages. And if Danny wasn’t so careful, so gentle in his touch, Jake might have let the panic creep through the pain and flinched back.
“Alright. Let me see your shoulder?” Danny asks. Jake’s mind is still muddled, and it makes him feel almost nauseous. He leans back and pulls his shirt off. It hurts. His ribs burn and he grits his teeth against the pain. Then the fabric is ripped out of the fresh wounds on his shoulder. He lays the shirt on the table, and feels dizzy as the pain of his ribs dulls back to the buzzing that it was. Danny doesn’t speak for a few seconds, and he doesn’t move either, and once the fog in Jake’s mind clears, he looks up at him. Danny’s cheeks are red again as he stares at Jake.
“You’re sure you don’t need the hospital?” he asks, his voice a little hoarse.
“Yes,” Jake says.
“Because I…Hm,” Danny falters as Jake’s words register.
“Fuck,” he says then, before grabbing the antiseptic and starting to work on Jake’s shoulder. It’s quiet for a while, until Danny speaks up again.
“They’re all from supernatural beings?” he asks. Jake is littered with scars. Most of them are from the cages, but the rest are from different monsters and creatures.
“Yeah,” Jake tells him. Danny gets up and walks around him to put the bandage around his shoulder.
“Well…” Danny starts before Jake cuts him off. He doesn’t want to talk about it.
“So, what do you know about the house? It’s been haunted for years, but as far as I have found, only three people died there,” Jake changes the subject.
“Hm… You mean the family? From the fifties?”
“Yeah.”
“Yeah…” Danny echoes. “The police report says the dad went crazy and killed them, then himself, right? But that’s not what Yvonne told me earlier. I… Sorry, that’s the wife. Or… The ghost of the wife. She said he was possessed. There’s something there, on the property. It draws them in, but as far as I can tell, most of them died in the forests near the house,” Danny tells him. He finishes tying off the bandage, and Jake gets up immediately, walking over to the bathroom. He wets a small towel and cleans off most of the blood.
“So we’re going into the forest then… The others didn’t say anything about how they died? Be a great idea to know what we’re up against,” Jake says. When he comes back out of the bathroom, he sees Danny’s eyes flick down before they settle on the floor. He starts playing with his wristband.
“No… I didn’t get a chance to ask anyone else,” he says.
“You speak with them then? Can you see them as well?” he asks, grabbing a clean shirt from his duffle and pulling it over his head.
“Um… Yeah,” Danny says.
“Do you have other powers?” Jake asks then.
Danny stops and lets his arms drop to the sides as he looks at Jake.
“Yeah,” he says eventually.
“Okay. Good,” Jake answers.
“Do you?”
He doesn’t want to answer.
“Well? Do you, or will you be in the way?” Danny asks, and it almost makes Jake smile.
“Yeah, I have powers,” Jake says. It’s the most he’s willing to get into it.
“Okay… I don’t think we’ll get much more done today. But we should recon tomorrow. See if we can figure out what the hell is actually killing these people,” Danny says.
“Why not tonight?” Jake asks. Danny just looks at him as if he’s gone insane.
“The house is infested with spirits? That will be stronger at night? And you got bit three times by the poes. I’m surprised you’re still standing,” he says.
“Why shouldn’t I be?” Jake asks. He’s feeling like shit, and everything seems to blur in and out of existence, but other than that, everything hurts. He’ll be fine.
“They’re dead things. They make you feel like it doesn’t seem like such a bad idea to join them. Doesn’t it hurt? Isn’t your mind foggy?” Danny asks. Something moves at Jake’s peripheral, but when he looks, nothing is there.
“Well, good to know I’m not officially going crazy,” Jake tells him.
“And you see why it’s a bad idea to go back where there are ghosts, right?” Danny folds his arms across his chest.
“Fine, yeah, you’re probably right,” Jake says.
“So we’ll meet again tomorrow. I can come back here at like, noon? And we can figure it out together. I don’t think you should go back there alone, so please, just wait for me. The house already got a little taste of you, and I doubt they’d leave you alone if you taste as good as you look,” Danny says. Jake just stares at him.
Did he just say that? Or is Jake hallucinating it again? After a few seconds of silence, Danny’s cheeks turn red again.
“Uh, I mean… I didn’t…I didn’t mean that. Forget I said it. Sorry,” Danny mumbles.
He was flirting?
After getting bitten by ghosts and falling through a hole in the floor that wasn’t even there. He must be very comfortable with all of these shenanigans, or he’s also lost his mind. He did also get bit after all.
“Hm,” Jake answers. Danny’s cheeks turn even brighter, and it livens up his face a little. He’s handsome. He’s really handsome. But that wasn’t Jake’s first thought upon meeting him. He was on edge, seeing danger, and for all he knows, this guy could still be dangerous.
“Noon sounds fine,” Jake tells him.
“Yeah, I, um, sorry. See you then,” the guy rubs his neck and starts moving, and he must be nervous, because his movements are fast and jerky.
“See yah,” Jake says, watching the blush spread down his neck as he opens the door and shuts it fast after himself, leaving Jake alone in the room.
“Hm,” he scoffs. He walks over to the door, and it feels like the floor is disappearing from under him again. He lands hard on his knees, and nothing is missing, and he didn't fall through. He’s still in the room, just on his knees on the floor. He should probably go to bed then.