Chapter Text
The house stood tall for two floors, a small attic, and a short basement. The siding was once white, certainly, falling to pieces as it rotted off of the bones of the house- old, neglected brick. The front yard had sparse, dead grass, yellow and white and brown. There was a single dying tree in the front yard, leaning over the sidewalk as if it were trying to crawl away from the house, searching for a better place to live. All it found were the city’s clippers. The widows were old and small and stained. The front porch was half decayed. The roof was all but falling in.
The owners, an old couple named Han and Leia, stood side by side in front of a car. He wore an old leather jacket and clothing reminiscent of that period, too. She wore some modern take on the 50s. They looked up at the house, two vastly different expressions on their faces.
Han looked grim and displeased, longing and pained and desperate and angry. Leia looked sad, too, but wistful, hopeful, nostalgic.
Haunted, the locals called it. Haunted by Han and Leia’s late son, his name long forgotten to anyone but the couple themselves. He’d gotten into a fight with his uncle, Luke, Leia’s twin brother, and he’d died here. He’d always been a troublesome man; at 30, when he’d died, he’d just gotten out of prison, where he’d been for seven years. He’d come home to find not his parents, but his uncle- the reason he was in prison, supposedly.
The details varied. I hadn’t asked Han and Leia about it, and I would not. It wasn’t my place.
“All these years,” Han said softly. “And we’re just… Giving it away.”
“What else are we meant to do, Han? Destroy it? It was the house he grew up in-”
“It was the house he died in,” Han said hotly, pained. “Yes. Destroy it. Send it to hell along with Luke.”
All those years, they’d kept it. Leia had mentioned her parents had built it. After their son, they’d moved out, renting it out, and the ghost stories piled up one after the other until no one would rent it anymore. No one had gotten seriously hurt, but scratches were liable to happen to anyone who could be mistaken as an adult. The kids, however, had different stories- the ghost they called Kylo was the mean one, but they reported a ghost with a different name, one they refused to say. That one was kind, never approaching them first, but playing with them if pestered to.
“You’re like me, aren’t you?” Leia asked after a long time. It took me a moment to realize she was talking to me; I turned to look at her, then gave a smile.
“I’d hope so, ma’am.”
Leia smiled brightly at that, warm, then turned back to the house. “I knew your grandparents,” she said softly. “Your grandfather was like me.”
Oh . That was what she meant.
I’d been called a psychic, a medium, other similar things. My parents had leaned into it when I was a kid; I’d been a local celebrity in my tiny part of England. I didn’t like to think about it, to talk about it. “That’s what I hear,” I said softly.
“Is that why you wanted this house?”
I tilted my head to the side, then gently touched the old, rotting fence. “I assume you’ve heard the ghost stories. I don’t know that you want to hear my thoughts on them.”
“I don’t,” Han said. Leia turned to him, but I didn’t look at them, letting them have their moment. After a few seconds, they kissed, and Han climbed into the car.
“I do,” Leia said softly. “Let’s go talk inside so that he can hear.”
Leia and I walked up the crooked walkway, and I instinctively grabbed her hand to help her up the stairs. She smiled and thanked me softly, let me guide her over the dilapidated porch and into the front room. “Hi, son,” Leia breathed.
The air of the house had been empty and desolate. It darkened just a bit around us.
That was the thing about my sensitivity, though. It was easily mistaken for the natural tendencies of the human mind to… Play pretend. Especially when indulged. I could not tell you if it darkened, or if I simply imagined that it had.
Leia sat down on the couch. The inside was a lot less ghastly, a lot more vaguely livable. The couch was old and worn, scratched by cats, but it would do just fine. I sat down on the rocking chair and moved back and forth, just a little. “Why are you ‘buying’ this house, Rey?”
She said ‘buying’. Ghost or not, this house was worth far more than I was paying for it, but $20,000 had been the biggest loan I could get. My grandfather’s money, and the money I’d made as a child psychic, had been squandered away by my parents. I looked around at it. “Well, good bones. Tired bones. Even if I move in here and it’s hell on earth as I fix it up, a house like this deserves it.”
“That’s the easiest answer,” Leia said amusedly. “Though I’m sure it is a true one.”
I sighed and looked down. “Everyone says the strangest thing about the ‘ghost’,” I said softly. “Demonizing whoever or whatever is here. Romanticizing the haunting. Hearing it- it’s almost exhausting. The way people came here only to poke and prod at the ‘ghost’ until they were too frightened to handle it. It bothers me, I guess. I don’t know why that made me want to live here, but it did. Maybe it means I’m no different from them.”
Leia was silent for a long moment. “I’m sure that you are,” she said softly. “Or I wouldn’t have sold the house to you.”
The room did not feel dark or forlorn. It felt utterly empty. I closed my eyes, letting myself feel the house-
Darkness in the back room, the smallest room in the house. As I focused on it, I could ‘see’ it in my mind, more concentrated, more true-
He looked at me, tall and broad and dark, angered to be found. His eyes were as black as a shot of espresso, but the whites of his eyes stood out.
“Leave me alone!” he roared, and I jumped, opening my eyes.
Leia was looking at the old, grimy fireplace. And it was all dark again, stuffier. Lots of people said hauntings felt cold, and sometimes, they did… But it was hot, sweltering, in that house all of a sudden.
“I’m sorry,” I said quickly. “I didn’t mean to bother you. I was just looking at the house- I didn’t mean to find you.”
The anger, and indignance, remained… But it got less hot. Less stifling.
If she’ll leave me alone, I’ll leave her alone- I closed my mind off from the thought that found me, but I took it to heart.
“That was all he wanted, really,” Leia breathed, voice full of grief. “To be left alone.”
Leia sat with me for a few more moments before saying goodbye, and I watched from the front yard as Han and Leia drove off. I carried in my few bags from my car, then sat down in the hallway upstairs.
“I will leave you alone,” I said. “But if there’s anything you don’t want me to do, any boundaries you’d like to set, you should let me know early-”
The door to the room he’d been in slammed open and I jumped; they’d never been so strong, and never done anything quite so quickly.
“Ah… Do you… Want me to… Go in?”
The door rocked up, then dropped down onto the floor, the loose hinges squeaking loudly. I swallowed, familiar with the fear that cascaded over me, but it was never something I’d been able to get used to. I stood and walked inside.
The windows were nailed shut. I only noticed as, slowly, they began to rattle, as if the ghost was trying to pull them out. The door nodded again, more times, vehement.
“You want the nails out?”
The door was nearly ripped off the hinges.
“Okay,” I said, hurrying towards my bags, finding the toolbox, pulling out the hammer.
I’d never met someone so- vehement. So unapologetically there. I returned to the room and pulled out the nails one by one with difficulty. As soon as he could, he wrenched the two windows open, revealing no screen behind it.
“You want the windows to stay open in here?”
He nodded with the windows that time, all in sync.
“Okay… Um… Can I… Put something in here, a candle or something, to keep the bugs out-?”
The closet door opened to shake as a no.
“Okay,” I said softly. “Okay.”
The closet was dark, exposed wood-
The closet slammed shut, and the door to the hallway shook vehemently.
“Avoid the closet?”
The door nodded, then fell off the hinges. I went back to my toolbox to fix it-
He must yank the door around a lot . It took a long time to fix the door, to secure it properly. “Just shake this door until I can fix it properly, please, and nod with the windows.”
He nodded with the windows.
“When I start fixing, will you let me in this room to fix it?”
Nothing. I looked around, waiting patiently.
Circling. Pacing. Around me. I couldn’t see it; I could sense it. Him. The dark, looming figure.
“I’m trying not to pay attention, but-”
And then he was there. I couldn’t see him with my eyes, but I could see him in my mind, tall and broad and looming and daunting. I hissed in a breath, but he didn’t look at me, just pacing furiously.
“My room,” he snarled. “My house. My room. My house.”
“We’re roommates, now-”
“No!” the door slammed shut, the windows slammed shut, and I jumped as he froze behind me. I couldn’t sense him enough to see him, but I felt him. He moved closer and I hissed in a breath, whimpering. “My room. My house. Not yours. Not anyone else’s.”
“Not your parents’?”
“They gave it up,” he snarled, then started pacing again.
“What do you mean?”
He didn’t answer, just kept pacing, and pacing, and pacing.
“You can tell me to shut up, but if you don’t, I’ll keep talking,” I said. He glanced at me, finally, with dark, threatening eyes, but said nothing. “I’ve got nowhere to go. I just want to fix up the house. I like to fix things. I like things… I like people, too, but not being around them. I’d like to fix houses and smile as little families move in and never talk to them again, but I’d like to drive by every so often, to see the kids playing in the yard, see fathers at the grill and mothers in the garden- or vice versa, or whatever else. Just to see that I fixed something that other people liked and keep that with me as I went on to the next house to fix.”
“I don’t care,” he snarled.
“You like kids, it sounds like. I can only sense you.”
He froze in front of me again, looking down at his feet. “Don’t like kids,” he said. “Just hate parents. Adults.”
“Mmm,” I said. He was lying- about the first part. I could sense it. He glared at me for it, but I was content to play along. He rolled his eyes and resumed pacing. “What’s your name?”
Dark, angry laughter. “Kylo Ren. What’s yours? ” His voice was angry, cruel, and mocking.
“Rey.”
“Rey who?”
“Just Rey.”
That gave him pause, but I couldn’t sense why, and I would not poke or prod. I could not see his features- just dark eyes and a jagged outline- but I could almost see his jaw tighten. He kept walking, then stopped behind me-
Heat wafted over my head and I let out a shaky, terrified breath as horror and panic and a strange fury washed over me. I couldn’t feel hands, but I felt something and I saw hands, as they pulled my three buns loose.
“Mom gets buns,” was all he said. “You’re not Mom.”
“Who am I?”
“Don’t know yet.”
He kept pacing as my hair ties fell to the ground behind me. “Please warn me before you touch me,” I breathed. “I felt- I got so angry. You’re angry.”
“Yes.”
A tear slipped down as exhaustion finally replaced the terror, and I wiped it away. “I won’t push you to let me help you, but I will tell you once- I can try, if and when you want me to.”
He pushed a hand through his hair- it was long, wavy. “Leave me alone.”
“I’ll be quick in your room,” I said softly. “And I’ll talk to you about any changes I’d want to make.”
“Leave me alone.”
“I’d make the windows bigger,” I offered softly, and he paused and wavered, then looked over at them. “Make them easier to mess with. I’d make it so you could be as loud or as quiet as you wanted as you messed with them. I’d fill up that closet if you wanted, rip it out, replace it- whatever you wanted. It’s your room, Ben. I’ll make it what you want it to be.”
He turned to the window, leaning on the window sill. “Used to be shorter,” he said softly, breathlessly. “Want taller windows, bigger. Don’t care if it looks silly.”
“I’ll do that. I’ll give you time to get used to the idea, if you want, or start here. Whatever you want.”
“Time,” he breathed, voice bitter again. Then, he spun. “Sleep here.”
“You want me to sleep in here?”
“Yes.”
“Okay,” I said softly.
“I’m loud,” he said.
“I’ll cope.”
His eyes studied me for a long moment, and then, both doors and windows began to slam and shake violently. He stared at me with nearly calm eyes, though, and even though I flinched and gasped and jumped, I kept his gaze-
I didn’t know how long it was, but eventually, he disappeared and the windows stopped, open. The closet door remained closed, the bedroom door open.
I dragged my things into Kylo’s room. The main living spots were furnished, but the bedrooms weren’t. “I was going to sleep on the couch-”
Kylo shook the door no.
“Okay. I don’t have a bed. I don’t have money for a bed yet.”
The zipper of one of my bags opened up slowly, as if it was much more difficult to do. The lid wobbled a few times before being thrust off. The floor in this room was cleaner than in any other, so I let him drag my sheets out, let him take time to make up a bed. He seemed to struggle with the pillows, but when I went to help, he shook the door again.
Touch you.
I inhaled sharply and prepared myself, and something resembling an arm dragged me towards the makeshift bed, gathering me on it. I felt only pangs of stifled panic and anger, but it was softer even when it did push through. I lay down like he wanted me to, sensing but not seeing him as he sat on the floor beside the bed, looking down at me.
I could sense the impression of a face now, but not see it. I groaned as the familiar headache followed-
I’d have to draw him sometime today, or the headache wouldn’t leave me be. I groaned and closed my eyes, hiding my head under the other pillow to block out the sunlight. I heard another zipper open, felt things drop onto the bed behind me.
And then he lay down on his back, looking up at the ceiling, in the corner.
Stronger than others. Stronger than Mom. Easier to touch, talk to.
“Is that so?” I breathed.
Strong as I was.
“Mmm…”
Makes it easier to be strong. Easier to move things, being around you. Stay.
I didn’t have the mental energy to consider the words, but I’d be staying for a while, at the very least. The plan had been to flip the house and do it all over again.
Keep you. Keep you. Keep you. Keep you…
I drifted off to sleep as he chanted it over and over in my head.