Chapter Text
Ghost forces himself to stop spacing out. He's been staring at the bathroom floor for who knows how long, like he was drugged.
If he isn’t paralyzed, he must be too disconnected to think about moving. His legs should be sore from leaning back against the sink, instead they just feel numb. He can’t remember what he was doing before now, but based on the razor blade pinched between his fingers, he can guess well enough what he was about to do.
What made him overreact this much? He’s not really thinking of starting again, is he? He’s got to be kidding. This isn’t more brain fog than usual. This isn’t serious. All he has to do is calm down, get back to work, it’ll be like this never happened. No one has to know.
Those thoughts screaming at him that sound so… emotional…
No, no, what are YOU doing here?! I don’t want you here!
Not real. He’s making it up.
I wasn't doing anything, just go away!
This takes 'lying to himself' a little far, but he's not about to argue with a voice.
No, not a voice. He doesn’t hear voices.
Hey, what’d I say?? Are you THAT fuckin stupid? Leave me alone!
“What—” He starts, before catching himself.
He doesn’t hear voices, and he definitely doesn’t talk to them.
His eyes focus again on the blade in his hand. The rolled-up sleeve exposing his other arm. He always gets kind of disoriented from looking at them, maybe because he so rarely sees them uncovered. That must be why he feels off now. They look alien to him.
I wanna handle this. You. Go. Away.
“Handle what,” he mumbles to himself, a wave of fatigue loosening his tongue.
You know!! You just don’t care! And it’s literally your fault!
Ghost closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. That doesn’t make sense. And he’s not hearing voices. He doesn’t do that.
He stares down at the small plastic case sitting on the sink. He thought he lost it in high school. He thought he was done with this.
He is done with this.
Pushing through the dizziness, he drops the razor blade in the case and promptly shuts it. The nostalgia of that sound brings up old feelings that he knows not to give any room to fester. He shoves it in his pocket and reaches for the door on unsteady legs before something stops him. He feels like he can’t move again. His hand squeezes the plastic in his pocket.
“I’m not doing this again,” he hisses frustratedly. “I’m not. I’m not doing this.”
Just shut up.
He hasn’t felt this bad in a while. What happened?
Shut UP. No one’ll give a shit if you do it! You know you wanna!
“No, they—” He turns away from the door, unsure if he’s consciously moving his legs. “This is ridiculous. I don’t want to.”
…Whatever. It’s none of your business anyway.
"It's my arm." He risks another glance down as he paces back and forth in the cramped room.
Faded scars litter his tattooed skin, and he can admit they feel too old. There are a lot of things he would have done to fix that, not long enough ago.
He laughs dryly at how absurd it is to be arguing with himself. “I don’t need this.”
You don't even need to BE HERE.
“Right, I don’t need this,” he mutters again, moving for the door.
STOP SAYING THAT! YOU CAN’T MAKE ME GO!!
His shoulders hike up.
Something’s wrong. That was real. This is…
He might throw up. He holds himself up by the wall and listens for it again. This can't be what he thinks it is, he thought he was exaggerating. He can still feel the weight of that plastic case, and the impulse eating away at him, but he knows he doesn't want to. Something's very wrong.
This is some kind of demon controlling his thoughts, and he's completely unprepared. No equipment, no background, no idea where Johnny is, and it’s already in his head.
He’s out of time to question if he can even handle an entity of this calibre on his own. He can. He has to.
“Alright, I see what’s going on. And you and I are going to get one thing clear.” His hand slowly searches around his belt.
No gun.
“I’m not letting you stay in my body, and I’m not letting you do a goddamn thing with it. No more of this shit. So get your paranormal butt out of my head before I do it for you.”
Ghost feels weirdly annoyed with himself, a heavy sigh overpowering him as he digs his nails into his palms. He has to remind himself that the feeling doesn’t belong to him. He was never this desperate about it. How long has a demon been attached to him undetected? How has it never set off their equipment?
How many of these scars are even from him?
That doesn't matter.
“I’ve been clean for a long time.” He keeps his fist against the wall, already feeling faint. “You’re not going to ruin that. What could you even gain from it?”
After another break of silence, Ghost opens his eyes, trying to find the floor. It looks miles away. He steadies his breathing and concentrates on getting control of the situation. Regardless of why it's being so quiet all of a sudden, he most likely can't reason with this thing.
“Look, demon. As nice as it is to not hear your annoying, squeaky voice, there’s no point in trying to hide. I’ve seen worse possessions than yours, and we can do this the easy way, or the way that involves a particle thrower bullet loaded into a nuclear acceleration Beretta M9.”
He still doesn’t hear anything.
“I know you're there. I know you can hear me. What happened earlier? Why are you trying to—”
I’m not gonna talk to you about that shit. And I’m not scared of your nerd gun.
He lifts his head to look at himself in the mirror, or whatever’s looking back. His face is resting sourly in a way he doesn’t recognize.
His pupils are massive. He can see patches of red dots around his eyes where blood vessels had burst from crying at some point. He knows he's not alone, but it feels like he caught someone in a vulnerable state that he wasn't supposed to see. It's a trick, obviously.
He waits for a deeply uncomfortable minute, firmly gripping the sink and making eye contact with something that really doesn’t want to.
“What I say goes.” He feels the pressure of his glare. “I don’t need it anymore.”
Why? Because you got better? Is that supposed to make me listen to you?
He honestly expected to see something when he hears it that time. All he sees is his unwavering face scowling coldly back at him.
You think everything just went away, and you did all it by yourself, and you’re better now?
His head and knees are killing him. He's starting to lose his patience with this demon, but he needs to deal with it carefully until he can find Johnny. And then he’ll… well, he won’t tell him about this, but…
I know you. I know what you're like. You don’t even HAVE a way to deal with the shit we go through, I do!
"Is that right?" Ghost bites back, tongue in cheek. "Clearly you don't know as much as you should. In case you haven’t heard, I am Johnny Ghost, Paranormal Investigator Ex—"
DO YOU WANNA SHUT THE FUCK UP?!
His jaw hangs open, ticked off at being interrupted. He takes a slow breath, loosening his hold on the counter.
I know EVERYTHING about you. And I know you won't remember any of this! But yeaah, you got me! I’m a magical demon haunting your spleen, why not! What are you gonna do about it?
Tilting his head in aggravation, he scoffs out the start of a less civilized response when he’s cut off again.
I know what! Ghostie’s gonna wake up tomorrow and forget whatever I did like he always does! None of it ever fuckin matters for him!
The smug curl of his mouth tweaks like it’s been punctured.
YOU don’t have to live with it. YOU should be the one doing this. YOU deserve it. But you’re— But—
Its voice cracks, gasping between involuntary laughs, as if it can hardly get the words out. Ghost isn’t falling for that, even while the entity’s performative emotions bleed into his own. He can control his expressions. It’s not real.
You’re so fuckin selfish— that you don’t even care! And— And I don’t fuckin need you, but I fuckin need him!! He’s gonna leave because of you!!
Ghost breaks away from his reflection and leans against the sink, trying to settle his breathing. “No he’s not.”
He's gonna leave someday because of you.
“That’s not true.” He presses the palm of his hand hard into his scalp as his headache worsens.
Yeah it is. You weren’t there.
“How is something my fault if I wasn’t there?” Ghost hisses through his teeth. “Do you even know how this works?”
What. You think just ‘cause I’m a demon I know everything? You’re the one obsessed with this salt-circler shit. How do you NOT know?
“I bet I will, when I ask Johnny what happened.”
He expects a real force of resistance from that.
No— Don’t tell him. Please, please don’t tell him.
He hadn’t expected it to be that simple.
Somewhat taken aback, he feels less angry, but a growing nausea takes its place. Possessions have always disgusted him, like any parasitic infestation, and the idea that it somehow ‘needs’ his partner is making him feel sick.
He reminds himself not to drop his guard over a little subversion of expectations. “What did you think we would do? I’m not going to relapse just so you can keep feeding off of my life. I quit and it’s gonna stay that way.”
I never agreed to that.
“What— agreed— What do you mean agreed?! We don't make agreements! I will get rid of you and I will never hurt myself again. I have a good life, and I got tattoos to cover all of it, I’m done. That’s what that means.”
But I’m not!
Ghost looks over his shoulder at the mirror. “Don’t be such a baby. It’s over. It was fucked up. It wasn’t even that serious.”
YES IT WAS! It WAS for me! I didn’t want to get tattoos! I wasn’t ready to stop!!
He watches his eyes widen, his brows soften in a way he hardly recognizes.
As disturbing as this all is, he does know how that felt when he quit. He’s never been especially proud of himself for staying clean. It doesn’t feel like something to be proud of. He just wanted to move on, and he did.
He still remembers how impossible it felt to give it up, though.
“You... you don't gain power from it. Do you."
No? That’s stupid.
He eases himself to sit on the floor, another wave of nausea hitting him. “It’s not going to help you.”
Who cares. It was all I had. And you took it from me.
When he rests his bare elbows on his knees, he notices how uncontrollably his hands are shaking. That’s odd; he’s revolted, sure, but he’s not scared. Is the demon scared?
He can’t believe he actually feels sorry for this thing.
“Look, whatever happened today, I can't let you do this—”
I don’t need your fuckin permission.
“—BUT I can let you talk to Johnny.” Ghost tries to sound cordial, but it still comes out like an interrogation. “Maybe he knows a way to... make it easier when we deal with you.”
He doubts he can hold himself to that. If he can take care of the possession without anyone knowing, he will. In fact, he’ll do just about anything to make sure Johnny doesn’t know. Sympathetic offers like that don’t belong in a hazardous paranormal investigation.
…I don’t WANT to talk to him.
Oh.
Ghost leans his head back against the sink drawer. “Fine. When the exorcism starts, you're on your own.”
He waits for a much longer moment this time. The quiet of the bathroom feels too loud, now that he’s listening.
He’s about to get up when a phone buzzes in his other pocket, which he's fairly certain isn't his.
It’s just another burner phone he doesn’t remember buying. He flips it open and sees a name that fills his chest with feelings that he knows aren’t his. He’s never been the best at reading, and it’s ambiguously coded, but some part of him can recognize that name from a mile away.
He feels his limbs move on their own as he suddenly clutches the phone close to his face and his voice becomes a hoarse, euphoric whisper, nothing like his own.
"Gav?"
He gets distracted by a heavy rush of dizziness, like giving in to the suffocating temptation to sleep. It’s one more feeling he thought he was used to.
When he comes out of it again, he can't tell how long it's been, but this time he remembers. At least up until the phone rang.
The razor, the demon, and an undeniable feeling that he was crying over nothing. He remembers.