#‘Yknow I’ve been told I should never follow a pretty lady into the water’

[valravenn]

my dream, my addiction

[walterdecourceys]

happy belated holidays, @stubbornness-and-spite ! i was you secret santa & i've written a Thing !

gonna go ahead & tag @sanderssidesgiftxchange so that they see this

link to read on ao3

or read it under the cut:

“Hypothetically, what would I do if my attic was contaminated with ghosts?”

Logan adjusted his glasses and stared up at the man that had just walked into his office. “I’m sorry?”

“Ghosts. In my attic. What would you suggest?” The man fluffed up his dirty blonde hair and looked at Logan inquisitively.

“Sir, while I’d love to help you with your… ghosts, you can’t just storm in here without an appointment. Do you know the number of people we get in here every day? You’re probably holding up quite a few people who have been waiting for weeks to speak with me.”

“I’m not, actually! I talked to the lovely old ladies in the lobby, and told them my story and all, and they were nice enough to let me go first! They said that ‘if that man has any sense, he’ll give you the proper advice and send you on your way very quickly.’”

“Well I don’t know what kind of advice you want, sir. I don’t know what the problem is.”

“My attic is contaminated with ghosts,” the man repeated.

“Well yes, I heard that. Would you like to be more specific? How do you know about this infestation, what would you like me to do about it, do you think you know these ghosts…”

“I heard these very strange noises- and not like normal strange noises, like ‘oh that’s a weird noise but it’s probably just the neighbors’ strange- like properly strange. They sounded like children’s voices? Which was weird, because we don’t have children in our house and the two couples next to us don’t have children either, they live alone. Very sweet, though. One of them made cookies for me once, and they weren’t nearly as good as Patton’s but they were probably a close second. Don’t tell him I said that though. He gets very touchy about his ba-”

“While this all sounds very interesting, I would prefer if you stayed on topic, Mister…”

“Baker. Roman Baker.”

“Right. Well, Mister Baker, please focus on the topic at hand.”

“Of course.” Roman took a drink from his water bottle. “So, I checked with Patton- Patton is my husband- and he said that he had heard the children’s voices too, and it sounded like they were coming from the attic. So we went up to the attic, and we didn’t see anything, but the children’s voices were definitely stronger. There were three, I think? Yeah. Three. Anyways, I went downstairs to google what if means if there are children’s voices in your attic, and google said it meant ghosts, so then I googled what I should do about that, and google said to go to a professional who specializes in ghosts, so then I googled the nearest professional who specializes in ghosts, and-”

“I think I get the point, Mister Baker, thank you.”

“Um. You’re welcome?”

Logan took off his glasses and rubbed his forehead. “Alright. Here’s what I’m going to do, Mister Baker. I will go over to your house. I will check to see if there really are ghosts in your attic, and if so, I will help you deal with them. If not, I am going to leave your house and I am not coming back.”

“Yes, sir!” Roman gave him a mock salute. “I’ll show you to my house, it’s not a far walk.”

 

So that was how Logan ended up Roman’s attic, eating slightly melted chocolate chip cookies and talking to ghost children.

Roman’s apparently-not-technically-his-husband (“we don’t have plans to get married, we don’t want the fuss,” Patton had explained. “Roman’s just dramatic.”) was standing next to him, watching pretty much everything Logan did with awe. Roman was on Logan’s other side, not paying attention to Logan at all and instead flipping through what looked like an old family photo album.

Roman had actually ended up being correct: There were ghosts in his attic, and they were the ghosts of three children. Logan had performed his typical summoning spells and the ghosts were now visible and much easier to hear, but that didn’t mean they were easy to talk to. So far, the only thing that Logan had been able to figure out was that they had died together, and that one of them blamed their death on the other two (although the other two denied this vehemently). He hadn’t even been able to get their names.

The tallest ghost in room, as well as the most talkative one, was explaining in detail how it felt to die. Logan was mostly trying to tune this out- it was far to early to be having an existential crisis about this sort of thing. He was more focused on getting the other two to talk, although they didn’t seem to want to.

“Look, uh- what did you say your name was?”

“Remus!”

“Look, Remus. I’m sure that dying feels very strange, and I understand that you want to tell me about it. But would you mind pausing your story for a moment so that I can talk to your other…. friends?”

“No.”

“No? What do you mean, no?”

“I mean, JayJay and VeeVee don’t wanna talk! I’m talking for them.”

“....I see. How do you know what they want to say?”

“I don’t know 100% for sure, but I know that JayJay usually wants to say something like ‘I don’t trust you and I think you’re gonna try to kill us again,’ and then VeeVee says ‘you can’t die twice idiot,’ and then JayJay says-”

“Thank you, I think I get the picture.” Logan rubbed his head and then turned to Roman and Patton, who were watching him with concerned expressions. “I am going to have a brief meeting with my- colleagues- about this situation. Will you two be okay up in the attic until we come back?”

“Hey, we survived five years in here alone,” said the ghost in the purple hoodie. “We’ll probably be fine. Unless Jan tries to kill us.”

“I couldn’t kill you, we’re already dead!” protested the third ghost. “That’s not how dying works, you moron.”

“See, I was right,” Remus said cheerfully. “But yes, I think we will be okay!”

Logan nodded and headed downstairs, motioning for the other two to follow him.

“Look,” he said once they were all standing in the kitchen. “I don’t think these ghosts can easily be rehabilitated.”

“Re-ha-what? Isn’t rehabilitation for like…. yknow, criminals?” Patton chimed in from where he’s standing by the stove.

“No. Well yes, but that’s not what I meant here. Christ, you two don’t seem to know anything about ghosts. Anyway. In this business rehabilitation refers to moving the ghosts to an empty house or building where they can live in peace and not bother the living. However, judging by these ghosts’ deminor, and the fact that they’re children, I highly doubt that will be a possibility.”

“So what do you suggest we do, then?” Roman asked.

“Well. There’s always the option of, um.” Logan lowered his voice. “Killing the ghosts. Well not killing per se, but there are…. methods. To get rid of them.”

“That’s horrible!” Patton cried. “They’re kids!”

“I never said I liked it, Patton, just that it was a possibility.”

“Well is there anything else we could do? I don’t know if they’d like being in the attic forever… and oh no, what if we move? Or die? What’ll happen to them then? We can’t just-”

“Hey.” Roman placed a hand on Patton’s shoulder. “We’ll figure it out, kay?”

Patton smiled weakly back at his boyfriend, then looked back at Logan. “What do you suggest we do, then?”

Logan sighed. “I suppose there’s always the option of… fostering the ghosts.”

“Fostering?”

“Yes. A situation in which adult living beings help to take care of undead children. They don’t need to eat or sleep or… do anything, really, but they’re still children and still need parental guidance. If someone were to foster them, they’d check in on them daily, make sure they’re doing okay and have enough entertainment, that sort of thing.”

Patton’s eyes lit up. “Roman! We could be parents!”

“I- that does sound… really nice, actually.” Roman smiled. “Would you be helping us?” He asked, nodding at Logan.

Logan blinked. “What?”

“Will you be helping us to foster the ghosts?”

“I- I mean obviously, I’ll get you all set up with the papers and make sure everything’s set up-”

“That’s not what I meant. Will you be helping us take care of the ghosts?”

Logan paused, flustered. Roman wanted him to help? Hadn’t they just met?

Or, alternatively, Roman didn’t want him to help and was trying to figure out weather Logan felt the same way. Well if that was the case, good. Logan definitely didn’t want to have to deal with those annoying ghost children every day, or Roman and his bouncy boyfriend/fiance/person.

Right. He totally didn’t care about them. He totally didn’t think that they were cute. At all.

“I, uh. Only if you want me to, Mister- Roman.”

“I do want you to! But, ah. Only if it’s not a bother to you.”

“I do have, uh. Work, and things like that.” Logan pushed up his glasses. “But, I suppose…. I could always ask for some time off. To help you with your endeavors.”

Patton stifled a squeal. “Oh, you would? Thank you, that’d be really- really nice.”

“Yes. Well. I am known for being nice,” Logan joked. “Um, how about I start by coming over at 4 pm every Tuesday? To start, at least.”

Both Roman and Patton beamed. “That sounds lovely.”

 

_______

 

So that was how Logan ended up taking care of three of the most stubborn ghost children he’d ever met.

He started, as he had promised he would, by coming over every at 4 PM every Tuesday. At first he just stayed for an hour before heading back to work. He’d come in, eat cookies and chat with Patton, then go upstairs and ask the ghosts how they were doing. Usually this last part lead to Logan storming out with a headache, but he got used to it.

The ghosts were actually quite sweet, once they started to trust Logan more. They were rather insightful, for seven year olds, even though they kept stopping every two seconds to argue with each other.

He taught all of them how to play chess, although only Janus seemed really into it. He asked them about their former families and lives (who were all dead now, unfortunately) and let Virgil cry on his shoulder. And when they were ready, he helped them find the skeletons of their old bodies and taught Remus about how to keep them safe and clean.

He really was starting to get attached to them, wasn’t he.

And there were… other reasons. That Logan kept staying longer. But those didn’t matter right now.

By the time a couple months had gone by Logan was coming over practically every day after work and spending hours at the house. It got to the point that he even slept over a few times, although only when it was absolutely necessary and he couldn’t drive home because it was too dark. Obviously.

He was starting to get closer to Patton and Roman as well. He learned that Patton worked at a bakery, but that he wanted to start up his own company. That Roman did acting at a local theater and was hoping to make it big in Broadway, although he mostly dismissed it as a silly dream. That they were actually quite excited about the ghosts, because they’d always wanted kids of their own. That they were both trans, something Logan was very excited to discover they had in common.

Unfortunately, Logan’s boss wasn’t a fan of how he was starting to spend his time. She told him that if he was going to keep spending his time, quote, “playing with bratty ghost children instead of exterminating them,” he would be fired, or at the very least demoted.

Obviously this was a bit of a problem.

Logan didn’t want to leave his job. It payed well, he liked the work, and his coworkers were friendly enough. But… honestly, if given the choice between staying with Roman, Patton and the ghosts and continuing to work… he’d choose the ghosts.

So he quit. Well, technically his boss called him in to her office to fire him, but he handed in his letter of resignation before she could say anything, so it was hard to tell who fired who, but the thought was still there.

He lived at his house for a while- there were enough ghosts in his neighborhood that necromancers were in high demand, even unemployed ones. But once Roman found out about his predicament he practically insisted that Logan move in with he and Patton, saying that there were far more ghosts in their town anyway and that they’d be honored to have him, really.

So he moved in with them. There were only two bedrooms, one for Patton and one for Roman (Roman had issues with touch, apparently) but that was okay because both Logan and Patton were willing to share a bed. The house was a bit small for three people plus ghosts, just in general, but no one ever seemed to mind sharing.

And so that was how it went, for a while. Logan lived with Roman and Patton, picking up odd jobs around the neighborhood and helping out Patton with his bakery. It was… good. Right. It felt like it was always supposed to be this way.

Which was why, when Roman and Patton asked to talk to him about something, he felt like he knew what is was going to be.

Which was why, when Roman and Patton admitted that they both had a crush on him, he knew that they were telling the truth. And he knew what they wanted.

They had barely even asked him “will you join our relationship” when Logan had said yes, and they were all laughing and smiling.

And when Patton and Roman both kissed him on the cheek, he knew that this was how he wanted to spend the rest of his life.