Boo-Ya

6/7 Ghost Bites

Pain spreads through his back when he leans forward and stares at the sliding door. It burns in a creeping, unwelcome sensation.

He coins it as a general symptom of his decline. Although the region is swelling and stings, he unwillingly falls into a slump for a moment before inspecting it. His eyes might as well be glued to the sliding door.

A look in the mirror past the eyerings and thin lines of his face, something catches his attention when he turns.

Rubbed over his spine in an abrasion, it looks like he took a fall, scraping over asphalt, spotted dried bits of wounds and blood. The middling part of it is a fat bruise. As he cranes his neck to inspect it, the form has slight appendages, shapes of digits. Swollen in the edges are marks of nails. Like a hand digging right through his skin.

He refrains from mentioning it to anyone and continues to dig into the house, the history of some ghost boy.

It's hard to find more than he has already dug out.

He sleeps through most of the days if he can. It doesn't go unnoticed. But no one asks. And Maven wraps any possible disturbance up as good as he can. Damage control.

Maybe the reason that he gets a visit is also damage control.

The mattress on one side sinks slowly. It's after midnight, early dark morning.

Maven smells it before he turns around to see a familiar body sitting down cross-legged beside him.

Thomas didn't have any scent before. Now the musty odor protrudes from him in clouds. He smells like the jacket that the moths love so much. Old clothes drenched in muffled sweat, water, and dust.

It is the smell of the forgotten.

Thomas sniffs.

"I was super drunk. And high. Like, we partied hard. So what's the smartest thing you do when you're drunk and smoke weed? You climb the fucking roof because the view is nice to chill at."

He points in a spiral up and down. Maven looks to the ceiling. Then thinks about the paved way around the garage and the front of the house.

"Splat," Thomas underlines. "That is all you need to know. People panicked."

"You weren't murdered."

"Yeah no. I told you there was nothing to avenge. You could hit me now that I feel something, I will forever feel really dumb for letting this happen."

Maven doesn't hit him. He just puts his hands to where the center of vital organs usually lies.

There is nothing. Nothing to feel. Nothing alive. No breath. No heartbeat. Nothing. Everything feels faded and like a bad imitation. Cold and hot and ceraceous. He would never put his hand down. He just presses it against the void space, the touch makes his hand go numb.

"If you ask me again about my death, I will probably lash out," Thomas mutters, basking in the touch.

"And then? I just have to burn your belongings or throw them in the trash," Maven answers. " And then move out to never see you again. Do you think you'd haunt the dumpsite or would you stay here in the closet all alone?"

"A trash ghost," Thomas jokes. A grey finger taps Maven's throat, pulse in a vein pumping. Then, dropping ungraceful, one arm wraps around him like a snake, the other loosens the touch over the non-beating heart and gently holds his hand. The touch swings back and forth like a swing in the wind between them. Almost playful. " I'm sorry. I need you. In more than one way."

The words bloom in a strange sensation. They are like a poison, or like a drug, spreading through his limbs and breaking his regular breath.

"I don't wanna hurt you."