Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

He stumbled out of the door, flashing lights and sounds rang in unison with his rapidly beating heart. His vision swam as he fought for step after step.

They poisoned him. They poisoned him, because he was right. And They already have his friends.

He stumbled towards a cab, his heels clicking against the pavement.

“Rough night, huh?” the driver laughed, her voice seemed too far.

“Yeah,” he shuddered, “Could you… the Eyes Station?”

“Sure thing, that’ll be twenty bucks,” the driver understood his fumbling words.

He weakly fumbled for his wallet around the folds of his dress, and, with a cough, payed the driver.

“There’s a bag if you need to throw up,” the driver supplied, gesturing behind her shoulder.

He nodded, coughing, yet again, into his hand. A metallic taste met the back of his throat, They clearly wanted to get rid of him. He rested his head against the door and watched the city blur past his window, a conglomerate of blending lights and shadow.

“Alright we’re here! Have a safe—“

He shut the door behind him. There was little chance he was making it out of here, but, if he was lucky, his friends could.

The only thing he could make out was the door to the building. Everything else was a hazy distraction. He took a deep breath, hoping it wouldn’t be his last, and eased open the door.

It soundlessly glided across the ground on greased hinges. He tried to stifle the tapping of his heels against the tile as he stumbled forward on buckling legs. His dress tangling as he moved.

The sound of hurried footfall battered around his skull as he staggered into a closet. The darkness surrounded him as the footsteps continued.

He released his shaky breath before it devolved into a dry cough. When he brought his hands away from his mouth they were coated in coagulating darkness. His nose burned with the smell of iron and shadow swam across his vision as his stomach spassed.

After a minute the pain lessened and he could move on. Using the wall as support, he pulled himself up and began to march forward.

“Oh, dear, you couldn’t leave them be could you?” The speaker’s voice was sickly sweet, with a deep echo despite the soundproof room.

Purple light flashed and pain flared behind his skull, then everything went black.

Chapter Text

Impulse leaned back in his chair and sighed. Of course the four other members of his team had to go off to who-knows-where and leave him searching for their next job. The clock read 5:30 PM, only a little longer until he can drag Grian into his spot so he could finally be productive. A chirpy ring sounded from his phone.

“Hello, this is GIGGS Ghost Specialists, how may I help you?”

“Ah, just the people I was looking for,” the caller spoke, relieved, “I’m with the Eyes News Station, and we require your assistance.”

“What day would be good to come over?” Impulse asked, pushing his exhaustion from his voice.

“ASAP— Oh— and you will all need to sign some paper work, liability, insurance, NDA… you know, all that!” The customer cheerfully intoned.

“Tonight works. We’ll be there in three hours, do you have any extra info that might be helpful? And it’ll cost two thousand dollars an hour,” Impulse upped the price, the news station definitely had money to spend.

“We don’t really know anything, and the pay is fine, as long as you get it done.”

“Of course, thanks for calling will that be—“ and with that the customer hung up.

Impulse let out an even more exasperated sigh as he stood up. He had two hours to round up the team and another hour to drive them there. So, basically, no time at all. He marched around their shared house, calling their names as he moved from room to room.

“Oh! Dipldop, buddy, we’re in Scar’s room, come on!” Skizz cheerfully shouted.

“Guys we got a— I’m not even surprised anymore…” Impulse opened the door and glanced over the group.

Everyone was sitting on the floor, in various stages of being covered in temporary tattoos and permanent marker. An open box of Disney tattoos sat in front of Scar as he finished drawing a mustache on Grian’s face. Who looked quite different without all his make-up, contacts and glasses. (How bad was this dude’s sight to need contacts and glasses?) Skizz’s arms were nearly covered in various colors as he began to sift through the different markers. Gem, who managed to escape with only a Bambi tattoo on her wrist, smirked as she saw Impulse’s expression.

“Welcome in,” she laughed, “what were you saying?”

“We got a job,” Impulse announced, “We have a half-an-hour to get ready.” He finished with a lie, maybe that way they would actually rush.

Eyebrows were raised around the room as legs stumbled to prepare.

~~~

Everyone was in the van in two hours, so right on time. Most of it was Grian applying several layers of make-up and his blue contacts. Ghost hunting was a business that you had to be alert for, after all.

“Alright everyone! We got a tough one!” Impulse announced from behind the wheel, “No motive, no age, not even a name—“

“And why did you think this was a good idea?” Grian questioned from where he was touching up the mustache Scar gave him.

“We get two-k an hour,” Impulse dryly supplied.

Skizze whistled approvingly, Gem and Grian exchanged looks of surprise and Scar resembled a proud father, “I knew you had the true GoodtimeswithScar-Spirit in you!”

“The conman spirit,” Grian translated.

“Eh, tomato-tomato,” Scar shrugged, saying both words the same.

“Scar, it’s tomato-tah-mat-ah,” Gem corrected.

“Pshh! Same thing!” Scar said without a hint of remorse.

“I, for one, approve of Scarface’s methods!” Skizz defended, wrapping an arm around Scar’s shoulder.

“I knew you would agree with me, Skizz,” Scar said as he stumbled into Skizz when the van lurched to a halt.

“We’re here, I got a pen for everyone to sign the papers,” Impulse interrupted, handing out pens.

“Thanks, Dad!” Gem said as she took hers.

Impulse snorted before he jumped out. The rest of the ghost hunters followed suit and filed out of the van towards the suited business person.

“You must be Impulse Essvey, nice to meet you in person,” they reached out a hand.

“You as well,” Impulse said taking their hand into a firm handshake, “So is this the place?”

“Yes the ghosts are in here just sign these papers and you’re good to go!” They said passing the papers around the group.

“Wait—“ Gem paused with her paper, “Did you say ghosts? As in plural?”

“Yes, I did,” they said taking the signed documents from Scar and Skizz, “Three ghosts. The first one is alone, the other two together.”

“Wait really?” Scar spoke with wide eyes.

“I thought ghosts were too territorial for that?” Grian glared at the veteran hunter duo.

“Normally they are but I think this a special case,” Impulse said, glancing warily at Skizz who only shrugged.

“Yes, now payment will be by check, good bye,” they strutted off without another word.

“I call van!” Grian shouted behind his shoulder as he ran off towards their vehicle.

Chapter Text

Scar groaned, of course Grian had to go hide in the van— again. Why couldn’t Scar get a turn in the safety of the van. At least he knew the two together ones were twins.

“So boys, how are we doing this?” Skizz announced, dragging everyone into a huddle.

Impulse wrapped an arm around Skizz and said, “Well we gotta go for the lonely one first, right?”

“Wait aren’t the two together just Twins? Isn’t it just that easy?” Gem interrupted with confusion lacing her tone.

“Yeah, I was thinking that,” Scar chimed in.

“Not necessarily,” Impulse corrected, “Twins share one body.”

“Dipldop is right,“ Skizz joined his buddy, “normies would think there’s only one ghost.”

Scar pointedly ignored the fact that Skizz referred to their customers as ‘normies.’ Gem’s brow furrowed in the way it did whenever Scar kept messing up a word, “Huh… then how do we figure out the two ghost types? Their evidence would just meld together.”

“Oh, Gem, we’ll burn that bridge when we get there!” Scar soothed.

“Yeah don’t worry, Gemstone, we’ll be fine,” Skizz assured.

Impulse buried his grin in his hands and Gem was snickering, “Sca-ar.”

“What?”

Gem stopped laughing with finial snort of air, “It’s nothing, we’ll burn that bridge when we get there.”

“Exactly! Let’s get a move on!”

“Wait,” Impulse paused, “This is a crazy amount of space we gotta cover, like more than the Asylum, there’s a good chance we could get lost.”

“Ooo! Do we get to do the buddy system!” Skizz exclaimed.

“That could wor—“

“Oh, Skizz we are going to have such a great time,” Scar started

“Nope! That will not work,” Gem cut off Scar, “Impulse, can you take care of Scar? I’ll take your husband,” she stated dragging Scar’s partner towards the building.

“Oh, Scar, she’s going to kill me with those ‘ships’ one of these days,” Impulse groaned trudging off towards the van, “now c’mon, let’s grab our stuff.”

“Did Gem and Skizz—“ Scar began, but could not continue as he burst into snickers from the explosive non-swears coming from the building.

“Seems like I got the correct buddy with you, dear Impulse.”

“Yup,” he said flatly, infuriatingly not-flattered, “You want the Parabolic Mic?”

“Ah, yes my Parabolobler!” Scar exclaimed grabbing the complicatedly-named-object, “Why thank you, Impulse.”

Grian remained uncharacteristically silent even though Scar knew he pronounced the sound-harnesser’s name wrong, “you okay, dude?”

“…”

“Earth to Grian? G-Man?”

“Oh! Hey Scar, Good morning,” he fumbled.

“Grian, it is 7:00 PM, you feeling okay?” Maybe he needed some van time.

“Yeah! Why do you ask?” He looks into the dark monitor, “Is my make-up okay?”

“You just seemed pretty distracted, buddy,” Scar soothed.

“And don’t worry, dude,” Impulse added, “You’re make-up is fine, you look naturally like a different person.”

Grian sighed, “Thanks, dudes.” He popped a mug of water into the van’s microwave. “Now go get those ghosts so we can get out of here.”

“Alright,” Impulse said, topping off his gadget stock pile, “Let’s get this done!”

The duo strutted by a defeated Gem and Skizz on their way to the Station building, and entered the lobby.

“Left or right?” Impulse asked.

Scar pulled out the special-super-microphone, “I’ll check!”

Scar placed the well-loved headphones around a his ears and listened for noise. After a several moments buzzing filled Scar’s ears. Muffled gurgling and coughing, akin to someone choking on blood, trickled in from the left hallway. Scar knew that noise probably should bother him, but you had to be a little bit insane to enter a business that threatens death at every turn.

“We’re getting some noise from over from the left.”

“Alright, let’s go,” Impulse said, armed with a thermometer and his incredible wealth of knowledge.

The two paced the length of the hallway, their steps reverberating through the empty space. The tile was mostly clean, but when Scar shined his UV light on it, he could see bright, splattered stains that normally can mean only one thing.

“Looks like our ghostie didn’t have a pretty death,” Scar said opening the first door.

“Don’t you think this is all pretty suspicious?” Impulse pondered as he paced around with a firmly room-temperature thermometer, “How does someone die in a news station? How do three people die in a news station? And why didn’t they tell us there were three ghosts?”

“Now that’s a lot of questions, mister,” Scar stated, cheerful as ever, “But I see your point, I don’t like NDA’s.”

“Yeah, and don’t you think Grian was weird in the van?” Impulse questioned, “He—“

Bzzt. “I don’t think we got freezing temps boys,” Bzzt. Skizz’s voice radiated over the walky-talky.

“I think we can cross that off,” Impulse called in, “Anyways, as I was saying, he seemed distracted, do you think he knows something?”

“Probably, we should ask him when we get back,” Scar stated with finality.

Bzzt. “Crossing our freezing temps.” Bzzt.

“Speak of the angel!” Scar exclaimed, “And I mean that one, Grian’s an angel.”

“A fallen one,” Impulse corrected, “You’ve been on the receiving end of his… resistances.”

“I have, and it’s hilarious!” Scar defended, “But we should check out the other rooms now, this one seems empty.”

“Sounds like a plan,”

The duo searched two more rooms, Scar keeping an ear on the talkative para-mic and Impulse doing the ghost hunting thing. After drawing a blank, the duo moved on to the next room. When Scar flicked on the lights, he was met with backstage area filled with free snacks, which Scar did not borrow when Impulse turned his back; spare microphones; and a pair of plush sofas, that would probably fetch a decent price if Scar could get them out of here with no witnesses.

“One more round of UV!” Scar declared waving around the dim light.

“Gothca,” Impulse assisted by turning off the light.

While gesturing around, a purple gleam emanated from the coffee table. Sat on top the table’s cluttered surface was a small, beaten down mic, that could be fastened around the ears, and it was gleaming under the light.

“We got fingies!” Scar announced to both Impulse and the com.

Bzzt. “How are guys finding things?!” Bzzt. Skizz complained, Scar could practically picture Skizz’s ‘angry’ face through the microphone.

“Cry about it, buddy,” Impulse helpfully offered Skizz.

Bzzt. “Well, at least I—“ “Oh no! Dads are fighting again!” “GEM—“ Bzzt.

Impulse shook his head to Scar’s laughter.

“That looks like all we’re getting from this room,” Impulse declared, pocketing the EMF reader, “Hopefully the recording room is the ghosts room.”

“Probably!” Scar offered, stepping into the dark room, “Do you know where the lights are?”

“No clue,” Impulse says, “Let’s keep an eye out— you have a flashlight?”

“Yep, let me just get the Para— the mic on first,” Scar brings the headphones over his ears again, just in time to hear a piercing wail sound over the mic.

“Ouch! Geez—“ Scar huffs, “this ghost has is out for me.”

His ears began stinging with tinnitus, but he offered Impulse a thumbs up to his concerned look, “I’m alright!”

“Good, do you think it’s a Banshee?” Impulse suggests after seeing Scar pry off the headphones.

“No, I don’t think so…” he frowned, “Too low pitched.”

“Hmm, alright, let’s finish searching this room then.”

Scar nodded.

“You good, buddy?” Impulse asked turning his flashlight towards Scar, narrowly avoiding his eyes.

“Yeah, I just nodded.”

“Well nod louder next time.”

The two dodged large cameras and lights as they weaved throughout the room. Scar’s cane got stuck between neatly wrapped wires several more times than he would like to admit.

Without any luck, and with several minutes, they ended up across from where they entered.

“It looks like there are a whole bunch of intern rooms back here?” Impulse looked down at the map on his phone, “You think our ghost is an intern here?”

“Imagine being trapped at your internship,” Scar scoffed, that must suck!”

The duo laughed as they began to search the first room. The room held a trio of desks and the air was so salty, it would not be hard to believe that they were at the beach. Well, Scar would believe it if they were not indoors, and a dozen miles landlocked.

“Oh?” Impulse questioned as he waved the EMF, “Over here.”

Scar followed Impulse’s steady steps to a dim corner of the room, he helpfully shined his flashlight towards Impulse’s line-of-sight.

The machine blinked to life in Impulse’s hand, four lights, then five.

“We got EMF over here,” Impulse buzzed in.

Scar, despite his run in with hearing loss, could not resist the sweet suduction of the para-mic and redonned the headphones. After several minutes useless pacing, his efforts were rewarded. As long as you consider the muffled swishing of fabric and dripping of blood a reward. Then pair of yelps that sounded fairly similar to Skizz and Gem.

He frowned and produced his walkie-talkie, “Everyone good over there?”

Bzzt. “Yup.” Bzzt. Gem supplied through heavy breaths.

Scar was ready to turn to Impulse to make a quip, but was interrupted by another message.

Bzzt. “Oh-o-o! We got ghost-writing baby! What’s up! What’s… huh?” Bzzt. Skizz’s voice faded out.