#I'm gonna chalk it up to ghostliness

[edennill]

Fingolfin & his eldest son, post-Nirnaeth

Well, at least the worst is (almost) past (two Kinslayings and one cursed mortal to go)

Reference taken with permission of @deheerkonijn from this amazing piece

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This is technically a WIP, but I have no idea when it'll be finished so I'm posting it without background for now. If I manage the latter satisfactorily I might go over in markers, but maybe that sketchy penciled quality is preferable in this case ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[echantedtoon]

A Bloom In Time Ch4 Missing Time(piece)

"AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAA!!!!"

That voice. That giant loud, ghostly cackle ghosting through the halls and waking the small girl was his one mistake. While he was busy conversing with Moonboy, he forgot a small problem back on the kid's ship. HIS VOICE WAS LOUD!! And it had obviously stirred the small brownhaired girl who was used to the silence so it did wake her up. Silence once again spiraled through the ship but it was too late. The small girl blinked tiredly and pushed her self up from sleeping on her side and blinked around tiredly at the silent room. It looked absolutely normal lit up halfly by her desktop lam, but she was still startled awake. Humming she rubbed her eyes and peered around the shadowed parts of the room searching for the owner of that loud as space laugh. Was Snatcher trying to scare her awake again? He did it quite a few times when they first met but had eased up, but she wouldn't put it past him to do it again.

"S-Snactcher? *yaaaawwwnn*", she asked the dark room before yawning. 

Tiny hands coming to rub her eyes as she peered before blinking tiredly. No ghost or otherwise answered and she almost chalked it up to her dreaming. She almost laid back down and went back to sleep. Almost drifted back off.....If it weren't for her super sixth sense telling her something was wrong. This feeling was special. This sixth sense also happened to be a built in hourglass detector, and a danger radar. Right now something was nagging at the back of her mind and an empty feeling sat in her stomach. And not the 'I'm really hungry. I'm gonna go bother Cooking Cat for a snack.' kind of empty feeling. This was a 'Hey. Something's not right here.' feeling. The blankets ruffled as Hattie pulled them off her and slid off the bed, landing on the bed with a small thump. The thump was enough to wake the other child who sat her head up blinking just as that feeling lead Hattie away from the bed towards the door of her bedroom. It opened with a small whoosh sound and she sleepily trotted down the purple carpeted kid sized hall in her space unicorn pjs. It was still pretty quiet, not that she was surprised. She reached the end of the hall and the other pair of doors opened and closed behind her with another whoosh sound. She was greeted with the familiar sight of her pilot room. With the control panel, window showing the vast world she's come to know as a second home, her trophies(a working train and a plush hamburger), doors to other rooms, the slide to her mail room, the locked time peice vault-.....It all looked really normal and everything, but still something was nagging at her for some reason."HElp mE!!", came a weird distorted robot voice and instantly her tiny head snapped to where the sounds was coming from. The little Roomba was upside down making sweeping noises and sweeping furiously in the air above him.

"RUMBI!!" She shouted out and rushed over to him. The small robot vacuum was soon turned back up the right way and held up eye level to the small child's blue eyes that blinked over the small robot in the dark. "What happened?"

The small thing blinked up at her and answered, "I WaS SWEEpING tHa carpeT and the GHOST TuRnEd mE UPSide DOWn!!

"Ghost? What gho-" She blinked and suddenly had a scowl. "Snatcher!!" She looked around the room scowli, but only the silent dark, peaceful room echoed back at her. As her eyes looked around the place, she noticed there wasn't any ghost or moving shadows or glowing yellow eyes and smiling that would've obviously given him away to the little girl. But what DID catch her eye was the flashing perfect account of '999' hourglasses safe and accounted for in the vault.......Wait! NOT A THOUSAND!? Her eyes practically buldged out of her head and gasped. With a dizzy Rumbi still under her arm she rushed up the platform and up to the screen that showed all the count of hourglasses accounted for. That couldn't be right. This thing MUST be busted! She would've heard someone open the vault door. The thing was too big and heavy to open quietly, it always made this loud as peck metal groaning noise whenever she opened it. And she hadn't opened it since she found the VERY last hourglass on The Captain's ship (which she accidentally sunk but that's not important now). The screen must've been busted!! There was literally NO WAY any one could've gotten in!!

Her poor worried mind raced for any possible explainiation and scenarios. None of which too good. Maybe the screen was broke? But it was working perfectly this morning, so why would it say only one was missing instead of short circuiting? What if that Mustache Girl climbed into her ship and stole one!!?.....Nah. She Mustache Girl Proofed her whole ship after that, and like she said no one would've been able to open the door without making noise. Her mind quickly revolved around WHO. Mafia? Nah. Those meat headed goons aren't too smart and would've broken everything by now. Conductor or Grooves?? Nah. The Conductor didn't even now how to get onto her ship, and they were on good-ish terms now. And Grooves was the nicest bird she knew, he wouldn't do a thing like that. What about Empress?? That crazy old cat swore revenge on her if she ever saw her again.....But she didn't even know Hattie was an alien let alone had a ship.  Cooking Cat was really the best option since she came up to visit a LOT and cook her things even if she wasn't around, but she didn't even show any interest in them. And NONE of them could've gotten in unless they could go through walls like-......a......ghost.

A ghost LIKE Snatcher. 

Her stomach formed a double pit as her eyes widened and she once again held up Rumbi and shook the poor Roomba more. "Rumbi! Which way did Snatcher go!?"

The robot 'blinked' his screen eyes at her. "i DON'T kNoW. He fLIPPED me OVEr anD FLew AWay."

She looked back up to the lit up screen and panic shot through her as realization hit her. Snatcher must've snuck in and took a time piece!! But why?! What could an undead ghost with seemingly unlimited power want with a time piece? And why only take one? She didn't have time to think it over as what ever the reason, she had a feeling this wasn't good at all. Putting Rumbi down really quick, Hattie ran back down the ramp and back through the door leading back to her bedroom. The doors opened with a whoosh sound as the child zoomed down the dark hallway, and barely registered Bow sleepingly walking down the same hall from being woken up from Hattie waking up. Hattie pushed her aside making Bow, fall onto her bum blinking at the other child running past.

"Hey! What's going on?"

Hattie didn't answer as she still ran through the second pair of doors with a whoosh noise, quickly running to her closet and throwing it open. Digging through the clothes and grabbing her lucky hat and regular clothes, and starting to throw them on just as the doors opened behind her and the curly haired gal walked back in still tired and blinking confused on why Hattie was pulling her purple shirt over her shoulders and trying to shimmy one of her feet into her boot at the same time.

".....What are you doing? *YYYAAAAAAWWWNNN* Is it morning already?"

"No time to explain!", she yelled muffled by her shirt. She pulled the shirt over her head and bent down to force those retched boots onto her feet. "I think Snatcher took a time piece!"

It took a few seconds for Bow's tired mind to register what Hattie said, and in that Time Hattie had already pulled her other boot on, clipped that signature yellow cape around her shoulders and made for the closet and pulled out her old trusty, indestrucable umbrella just as Bow's eyes widened and blinked. "What?! Why would he do that?"

"I don't know." Hattie gave a determined face as she placed the hat on her head and stomped forward to the teleporting telescope in the middle of her room. The one that lead to Subcon forest and grabbing the end you look through. "But he's going to get a time out just like he gives us!"

Bow quickly made for her small pile of clothes by her sleeping bag, "I'll come too!"

Hattie quickly shook her head. "No! I don't know where he is. He might just be pranking us again. You stay here just in case he shows up!"

Bow didn't look convinced but simply nodded as Hattie looked through the telescope. The Subcon World showed itself to her as she looked through it. The giant purple and white parts of the world signaling where Snatcher's forest was and Vanessa's Icey Kingdom. With a stretching lightheaded feeling she was already used too by now, the telescope teleported her down to the purple spooky part of the planet and she shot down in a beam of light. A few seconds later she landed in a random part of the subcon forest with dead trees and glowing mushrooms everywhere-....No wait. She knew this place. A headless statue over there. Some old rotten tree houses. And cursed fire burning everywhere. This was Snatcher's old domain alright. Which meant if she remembered right, his tree home should be somewhere to the left of here. Coughing and shaking her head from the heat and smoke these cursed fires always caused, she began to run towards the left side of where she landed. Passing burning purple trees and stumps, and the occasional mushroom and other ruined buildings. But that didn't stop the girl from running over and dodging all the burning things by now. After all, she was used to most of this forest's terrain by now with how many times she came here and all the exploring she did, still one of her favorite places to go. But as the child approached the non-burnt area, the air became a little less hot and smoky, eventually the sight of the tree with the giant blue mushroom growing on the top came into view right in front of the child, dwellers and lots of Snatcher's minions watching as she passed. With a final leap the small gal exited the line of the fiery inferno, and ended up just a few feet from the giant hollowed out tree. Wearing a scowl she ran towards the hollowed out tree, jumping over the small trench around it and landing on one of the giant, thorned vines leading up to it. It only took another good leap and she landed in the middle of the ghost's home. 

"SNATCHER!?,'' she shouted out looking around the empty home. Her narrowed eyes and pouting face scanned over the empty home's details carefully, before deducing he wasn't there at all. She went back to the opening where a few of Snatcher's minions (who she had come to know as Subconites) were gazing confused as she looked around the dark surroundings. "SNATCHER!! WHERE ARE YOU?!"

"You're a little late, Newbie," One of the Subconites spoke up nearest to her and she looked at her, "The boss hasn't been here since he took you and your friend home hours ago."

"WHAT?!" She jumped down in front of the female minion. It was hard to tell their gender if it wasn't for their voice. "Where is he?! It's really, really important! Even more important than our BFF time!!"

She exchanged a confused and worried look with some of the other minions before she pointed down an old worn down path.  She knew exactly what path that was. It lead straight to Vanessa's Mansion and that icey part of Subcon. Hattie gaped at it, ....oh no. This couldn't be anything good. Snatcher having a time piece for whatever reason was bad enough, but if someone as Evil as Venssa's ghost got a hold of such a powerful item....It would probably make what Mustache Girl did a small toddler tantrum. Nothing good could ever come from Vanessa, especially if Snatcher and a Time Piece was involved. OH!! Where was her Uncle Moonjumper when she needed it!? He was the only one she knew that could get under Snatcher's skin(so to speak) and he'll sometimes listen to him when he told him the girls were upset. No time to think about that now. 

She looked back to the minion in horror and pointed down the way she pointed out as if to make sure of this horrible situation. "THAT WAY?!"

The minions all nodded. "W-With Mr. Moomboy too."

"......Uncle Moonjumper?!" Oh thank goodness. At least she knew someone with half  brain and reasoning was with him. But the question was, what were they doing?! She jumped over the small group of minions and started running down the old worn path towards the broken bridge umbrella in hand. Running so fast her other hand had to grasp onto her hat as she ran. Running past more dwellers and minions.  Turning left when the path divided and started running down the long way towards the manor. Her heart was beating in her ears and sweat was forming on her forehead as she hurried towards the broken bridge. After a few more moments of running at this speed, she spotted the old broken form of the bridge. That didn't stop her, she was only more motivated into running faster and heading towards the thing. The bridge was broken in half over a deep ravine, broken by Snatcher long ago. With her pace and speed, it was easy for her to jump over with a flip and land on the other side with a thud, as soon as her feet hit the ground she kept running and making her way towards the manor. Already she could feel the cursed cold air hit her face as her feet tapped along the other half of the bridge before crunching in the snow. Snow flung behind her as she ran up the snowy hill and came across the frozen remains of the minions village. Houses. What looked like LOTS of house remains, and old frozen cobblestone roads went past her as she ran past, but she still didn't pay attention to the things she'd already scene as she passed. The giant ice walls she had destroyed when she first went there were still destroyed so she had no problems running through the giant ice tunnels past the village. It was still as foggy and cold as she remembered.She shivered and pulled her hat a little lower over her head as the cold nipper her pour body. Maybe she should've worn her coat. The fear in her stomach doubling not only because  of the circumstance, but because of the horrible scary vibe Vanessa's domain gave off. Even though Vanessa's curse magically kept her trapped in the manor, her cold heart still reached out all over her old kingdom. She still remembered how scary that woman was and how all the negative, possessive energy distorted the atmosphere around them until she walked into a completely different room. She was pretty glad Bow wasn't coming along on this mission. The blue-white ice walls gave her a reflection as the alien child as she ran. Eventually coming to the black gates. The old black gate gave off metal taps as she ran across it and ran towards the shadow of the giant mansion. 

Almost there. She was ALMOST THERE!!  Hang in there Snatcher. Whatever you do, don't do anything dumb!!! 

She ran as fast as she could, lungs stinging from her pace and the too cold air. The fog clearing just enough to give her a picture of the looming mansion and all it's gloomy, fearful glory. Of course she started running towards it. The feeling of her sixth sense going off like crazy, like an alarm. That time piece was definitely in there. OH!! She was gonna give Snatcher a piece of her mind after th-

BOOOM!!!

A giant energy wave of light and energy game from one of the second floor windows, and that energy hit along with the sudden strange happening was enough for her to stumble and face plant into the snow. The giant flash also blinding her. Sending more chills down her spine. As soon as it came it left, and she quickly got to her feet again. Pushing her hat back and using her other hand to wipe the snow from her face. Looking up panickingly at the window the blinding flash had come from.

"DAD!!"

[mistrumasher]

Bordertober Day 27: Eclipse

Eclipse. The total or partial blocking of one celestial body by another.

Troy doesn't quite rouse from the numbness and phantom sensations rattling throughout his body at first. It's only when the vague sounds of boots scraping concrete and the acute shifts in movement against gravity reach him that he realizes he's no longer on the floor. Or unconscious. As the last vestiges of something other than himself releases their clutching hold upon his subconscious, Troy groans, wincing his eyes away from the sunlight beaming through every disorienting crack in the walls they pass through. Albeit at a stilted and lurching pace. An unusual warmth isolated in small patches across his skin lead his unsteady gaze directly alongside him.

The Raider, two thirds his height, somehow braces all his unwieldy mass against them. Their brows furrow in a combination of determination and the very glaring realization they'd potentially bitten off more than they could chew as they move both their bodies onward down the corridor. Their head bobs upward slightly at the sound of his stirring.

"Hey, you're finally awake! Trying to cross the border?" Ashka cracks lightly, though the intended laugh doesn't quite make it through their concentration. Doesn't stop a pointed, "Ha" at the end. Troy frowns, and the ghostly new recruit quickly adds, "Nevermind. New-U joke. Realize you guys probably don't use those, huh?"

"Ugh," Is all he can muster in the moment. His weight bearing down on the former Raider, and somehow all that willowy whisper of muscle managed to get them relatively far from where his memory hit the pause button.

"Yeah, I hear you. Life, right?" They nod appreciably to the sentiment.

Not that Troy said anything remotely resembling conversation out loud aside from his gutteral distaste of being awake, he can admit the thought does cross his mind briefly. Another mumbling grunt more, and he chooses to use his tongue for something other than bemoaning his situation.

"You got a lotta nerve thinking I need this kinda help."

Ashka rolls their eyes, hefting his organic arm a little firmer over their shoulders, "Cut the 'holier than thou' junk for a little while, why don't ya? I'm not spontaneously combusting or anything, so I'm just gonna chalk it up as a good graces thing, or whatever it is your bandit guys do to earn their keep."

Troy stays the knee jerk reaction to push away. Whatever's been happening lately leaves him more tired, a little emptier each time he loses track of himself. Being guided by a helping hand that doesn't leave him something of a walking husk, for once? He doesn't voice the feeling he doesn't recognize. Are all Raiders like this? Psh. Annoying.

All the same, the next few words from that same annoyance releases him from the ever lingering, groping blanket of anxiety. He'd complain about it, later. For now, Troy relaxes. From beside him, the new COV recruit chuckles.

"Just take it easy for right now, alright? You can be God King, later."

[esselley]

Happy birthday @allykat023​! I’m so glad I snuck into your DMs all those months ago <333 LOVE YOU LOTS!

[Now on AO3!]

[*clears throat* the context for this fic is that Oikawa is a psychic single dad trying to raise two annoying ghost kids, and the ghosts are winning]

It is beginning to become clear to Tooru that there is, in fact, some absolute bullshit going on, and he is definitely not amused by any of it.

This is the fifth time in a little over a month he’s had to have a plumber come to look at his apartment—he’s even had to reschedule tarot readings—and yet, as far as anyone can tell, plumber included… nothing seems to be the problem.

Which means that the only problem, then, is the bright and unabiding torch Tooru seems to be unable to set down, in regards to the plumber himself.

“So…” the man says, wiping his hands dry on a towel in his belt loop. Tooru has to tear his eyes away from the prominent flex of his biceps as he does so, the swell of his pecs beneath his uniform polo shirt. The name tag on it reads Iwaizumi. “Can you walk me through what happened again?”

Tooru almost offers to walk him wherever he wants to go, up to and including the bedroom. He clenches his jaw shut so the words don’t escape. Now is not the time to be thirsty—he doesn’t even have running water.

“I was in the shower,” he says, and feels his cheeks go distinctly pink just from the suggestion of nakedness, and forces himself to look at the man. Mistake. He finds his gaze being met by a pair of serious, attentive green eyes; Tooru feels like he’s baring his soul, not recapping the issues with his faulty water line. He clears his throat, hoping Iwaizumi has not noticed the unnecessarily long pause while he gathers himself. “I was… showering, when the water started to feel—strange? I don’t know how to describe it. And when I looked, it was… purple.”

“Purple,” Iwaizumi repeats, deadpan.

“Yes.”

“Well,” Iwaizumi says, turning the shower knob to the side. Out the water comes, clear as usual. “It’s not now.”

“I can see that,” Tooru sniffs. It’s one thing to have a crush; it’s another thing to have a crush on someone who clearly thinks he’s an idiot.

“Just like,” the distressingly attractive handyman continues, and oh, no, Tooru can see what’s coming next, “last week, when not only did the water not run cold when you tried to turn it hot, but the toilet also flushed the correct way. Which is to say—”

“Down, yes, I know,” Tooru cuts him off, feeling increasingly mortified. Last week had really been a nightmare—frigid water every time he tried to shower, and toilet geysers every which way he looked. “Look, I’m just as confused as you are! One of your colleagues who came the… second time, was it? He said it could be something to do with the pipes. Mold, or something!” He shudders at the thought. “Maybe he could give a second opinion?”

Iwaizumi scoffs. “He’s not coming back. Why do you think I’ve been here four times already?”

“I don’t… know?” Tooru says. “I figured—scheduling?”

“Yeah, he’s been scheduling himself other jobs so he doesn’t have to come here,” Iwaizumi says. “He’s superstitious. All your weird, mystical stuff, it freaked him out.”

“What—” Tooru can’t believe this. “But it’s not dangerous!”

“You try telling him that,” Iwaizumi says, shaking his head. “He kept telling me he felt a presence.”

“But I would have felt it, too,” Tooru insists. He knows people tend to take one of two routes with this: skittish, like the other plumber. Or skeptical, like Iwaizumi. But he seriously needs his house fixed, or he’s going to lose it. “There’s no other presences here, besides me and—”

He trails off. Wait just a fucking second.

“That’s what I tried to tell him, but he wouldn’t bite. So, good luck getting him back here…” Iwaizumi shrugs. “Looks like you’re stuck with me.”

Tooru waves a hand vaguely. “Oh, I don’t mind that.” He peers around the room, turning in a slow circle.

“You… don’t?” Iwaizumi asks, eyebrows raising in surprise. When Tooru doesn’t answer, he glances around the room suspiciously, too. “What are you doing?”

“Shhh...” Tooru says, holding up a hand. “I’m divining for spirits.”

“Are you serious,” Iwaizumi says flatly. “Listen, I’m gonna pack up and head out—I won’t bill you for today, I barely—”

“Shhhhh!” Tooru hisses, silencing him. The air in the room feels very still, to him—still and pitched high, like a tuning fork being struck although in reality, all is quiet.

He spots movement at the edges of his vision and whips his head sharply to the side, where he sees them—two wide, floating pairs of eyes in the bathroom mirror, not a reflection, but an impression. One pair deep and dark, the other sparking and bright. Two little souls, bound to him by choice.

He flings out a hand and points dramatically at the mirror. “It’s been YOUUUU!” he howls, startling Iwaizumi, and both pairs of eyes dance about in silent panic before blipping out of existence. Only they’re still there, he knows, just hiding.

“What the fuck—” Iwaizumi says, but very unfortunately, Tooru doesn’t have time to devote to him anymore—he needs to figure out how to murder someone who is already dead. An exorcism is too good for these little shits.

“Sorry, Iwa-chan, but I'll have to say bye for today—” Tooru tells him as he rolls his sleeves up menacingly.

“Iwa-chan?”

“The spirits have turned against me!” Tooru yells, shoving him towards the door. “This is no place for a normal person, quickly, escape!”

“Wait a second—”

“I'll be fine!” Tooru insists, before he bodily shoved Iwaizumi out into the hallway. It's not easy—Iwaizumi is solid. “Forget what you saw here today,” Tooru hisses ominously at him through the crack in the door, before slamming it shut in his stunned face.

Now. To deal with his little ghoulish problem.

He yanks the plush tablecloth and all his seance equipment off his dining room table and locates a piece of ordinary chalk. After several moments of frantic scribbling, it is covered in the symbols and sigils of a powerful summoning circle. He places candles around the edges, and begins to chant a binding ritual ominously. The candle flames flicker, and his hair blows in the gathering breeze inside his living room.

A noise begins to build as well, a terrible, scraping, screaming noise, filled with agony and tumult. It gets louder as he chants, and as it grows, so too do two indistinct shapes in the center of the summoning circle. They writhe and tremble, shapes at once frightening and pitiable, carving to his whim at the same time that they fight it with all their might. The flames suddenly surge upwards, bursting to life, and Tooru slams his hands down on the tabletop.

“Would you give it a rest with that?” he says crossly, and the unearthly screeching stops at once. “The neighbors are going to complain again!”

“Why couldn't you just call us normally?” Kageyama asks him. His ghostly form bubbles sulkily, like seething, purplish-blue lava.

“Because,” Tooru says, pointing an accusatory finger at him, “you two never come out when you know you're in trouble, you just make me follow your traces all over the apartment—”

“Are we in trouble?” Hinata asks. He is light made solid, a fizzing sine wave of glinting gold.

“Obviously!” Tooru says, and both ghosts wobble flinchingly. “What on earth are you two trying to do? Do you know how much money I've spent on repair company appraisals that all lead nowhere?”

Honestly, even he isn’t sure what they’re up to. It's not like them—they aren't poltergeists, they're not malicious. For all that Tooru pretends it's a chore having them around, he's constantly surprised by how little he actually does mind. Since the two of them unceremoniously crashed his life as an (extremely) eligible bachelor and practicing psychic, they've been content to just keep each other company and learn how to be better ghosts. Unfortunately, this seems to have included manifesting the ability to haunt his plumbing.

He shakes his head. “This isn't like you two. I'm… frankly, I'm disappointed.”

The candles flicker morosely and the chandelier directly overhead sways in remorse.

“We… we just wanted to help,” Hinata says eventually.

“Help with what?” Tooru asks, blankly.

“You just seemed lonely!”

“He’s gonna get mad…” Kageyama warns.

“I seemed lonely?” Tooru repeats, sputtering. That's preposterous, to say the least. “I'm certainly not. I could never be lonely with you two—” he catches himself just in time, “—with you two constantly pestering me!”

“It's not the same!” Hinata says.

“Trust me, Shouyou-chan—”

“We noticed the way you stare at the repairman,” Kageyama interjects.

Tooru's mouth falls open. He cannot believe he is being set up with his plumber by two dead idiots who still haven't realized they are in love with each other.

“Have you, Tobio-chan?” he replies, with a silken smile. “Recognize the feeling, do you?”

Kageyama must realize the danger he's in, because he stops trying to argue. Tooru drops his smile.

“You two,” he says, “are going to stay in the circle for awhile and think about your actions. Also, there is to be no possessing of any household objects for one whole week, effective immediately.”

Kageyama and Hinata both whine something awful at this, and Tooru crosses his arms and basks in their misery for a few glorious moments. They love racing each other to possess things right before Tooru uses them, but they’ve never try to make anything malfunction before, so he allows it. Hinata's favorite is the teapot, because it tickles when it starts to boil. Kageyama likes the aging washing machine. He's never said why, but Tooru suspects it's because the old thing sounds nearly as grumpy as Kageyama himself does when it really gets going on its spin cycle.

“Keep it up,” he sings, as the candles start to turn an odd shade of green, “and it's gonna be two weeks.”

The whining stops, but Kageyama does throw a “You know we're right,” at him as he leaves them there in the summoning circle. Tooru does not deign to respond.

“How long before we can come out?” Hinata calls after him.

“Until I say you can,” Tooru replies. He ignores their ghostly wailing for the rest of the afternoon, until they have settled down and started to play I, Spy with each other. He refuses to admit that he finds it adorable when they get along, even if it's mostly because they're plotting against him together.

Unfortunately, the plotting does not end there. A few days pass without incident, and Tooru is lulled into a false sense of security. The week comes and goes; Friday arrives in a leisurely fashion. So leisurely, in fact, that Tooru decides to take a luxurious bubble bath to pamper himself. He spends a long time soaking in the tub, and is slightly surprised to see no signs of his two ghosts anywhere—normally, they would get into a game of Bubble Wars while Tooru relaxed, watching the massive orange and blue soap bubbles floating around the bathroom, trying to ram each other to see who would pop first. Today, all is quiet, and so Tooru enjoys a glass of wine in peace.

He finishes his bath and lets the tub drain, wrapping towels around his waist and his wet hair. He will need to blow dry it and make sure it looks appropriately dashing before his evening client appointment, and he’s about to dig the hairdryer out from under the sink when there’s an odd rumbling sound from behind him. He turns, frowning, to look at the toilet.

Naturally, this is the point at which the toilet attempts to murder him.

“WHY?!” he shrieks, devoid of anything else to say in his panic, as twisting tendrils of water burst from the bowl, latching around his arms and legs, dragging him towards it. Try as he might, he can’t break free, and as he is wrenched closer and closer, the entire opening of the toilet seems to yawn, wide—he can see blackness and light swirling in its depths, and he realizes, shit, spirit portal— “Tobio-chan?! Shouyou?!”

The entire bathroom is flooding with water. There’s a horrible, slurping, shloomp-ing sound as Tooru hits the rim of the bowl and starts to get sucked inside of it. He can feel the vacuum of empty space seizing onto him, an unstoppable force.

“You little shits, I’m going to make you corporeal long enough to punch you both in the face—”  

He hears a loud banging from far away, and wonders, what now, but then comes the sound of something splintering, and a moment later a voice bellows, “OIKAWA?”

Tooru gasps. “I-Iwa-chan?!”

He hears someone running, and then Iwaizumi—how is he here, Tooru wonders—bursts onto the scene, framed in the doorway, bearing a stunning resemblance to an angry bull. He takes in the sight before him quickly—the toilet, the spirit portal, Tooru’s hair in a towel cone—and leaps into action. He wades through the flood, reaching out, and Tooru stretches out his hands—Iwaizumi grabs his arms and heaves, and Tooru begins, ever so slowly, to pull free of the portal.

“GRAB ON, STUPID!” Iwaizumi shouts at him, and Tooru throws caution to the winds and flings his arms around his neck, and Iwaizumi seizes him around the waist and yells bloody murder as he leans all the way backwards—and then they’re falling free, onto the bathroom floor, Tooru crushed to Iwaizumi’s extremely firm and noticeably broad chest. There’s a howling, rushing noise, and all the water on the floor recedes whiplash fast, suctioned back into the toilet, which then closes its lid with a sassy and decisive snap.

For a moment, neither Tooru, nor Iwaizumi moves. They just lay there, panting and exhausted. Iwaizumi lets out a slow breath.

“Holy shit,” he says, “your apartment is haunted.”

Tooru sighs. “It’s not haunted. It’s being visited by spirits.”

“That literally is what haunted means,” Iwaizumi points out.

“We’re not visiting, we live here!” Tobio’s ghostly voice shouts in Tooru’s ear.

“I’m evicting you!” Tooru shouts back, incensed.

“Are you talking to the—” Iwaizumi says, before sitting up abruptly, causing Tooru to roll off of him. He hastily readjusts the towel around his waist—he’s lucky it stayed on at all. Iwaizumi swats at the air. “Hey! You fucking ghosts! What the hell is your problem?!”

“They’re trying to get me to—” Tooru pinches his lips shut, irritably. He settles on redirecting the conversation. “Why… how did you know I was in trouble?”

“I didn’t,” Iwaizumi says. “I mean, not until I heard you screaming.”

“Screaming seems like an exaggeration—”

“I thought it was the fire alarm at first,” Iwaizumi says. He is ruthless. Tooru likes it.

“Okay,” he concedes, “but that doesn’t explain why you were here.”

“Ah,” Iwaizumi says, “well… the days have been alternating.” When Tooru continues to look confused, he elaborates. “The first time you called us was on a Monday. Then Thursday of that same week. Then the next week, Friday. Then last week, back to Monday, then Thursday. Now it’s Friday, so I just thought…”

“Of course.” Tooru snaps his fingers in realization. “Spirits can’t tell the flow of time like you or I, so often, they’ll develop certain predictable paths of behavior… you must be sensitive to their ways in order to have seen that!”

Iwaizumi stares at him. “Or… I’m just better at pattern recognition than you are?”

Tooru waves a hand. “Whatever. Second question: did you break my door down?”

Iwaizumi’s expression turns slightly shifty. “Kicked it off its hinges, actually… I can fix it.”

Tooru only wishes he'd been there to witness it. Iwaizumi stands, and Tooru allows himself to be helped to his feet, Iwaizumi’s strong, sturdy arms steadying him after he pulls Tooru off the floor. He notices, then, two fuzzy gazes peering out of the mirror at him, and scowls at them. He can’t decide how angry he is yet. On the one hand, having Iwaizumi come daringly to his rescue is hardly the worst thing that could be happening to him on a Friday afternoon. On the other hand, he’d been stuck inside of a toilet when it had happened; not quite the stuff of romance novels.

Iwaizumi notices him staring, and turns to look curiously at the mirror. “You don’t act like they’re evil.”

“They’re not,” Tooru says, rolling his eyes. “They’re just meddlesome and stupid.”

“Hey!” Hinata yelps.

“Well, you are.”

Iwaizumi’s lips twitch. “So… mind telling me what they were meddling for?”

“Um…” Tooru does mind—but unfortuately, it doesn’t seem as though this is going to stop unless he does something drastic. Like telling Iwaizumi the truth. And so, because he doesn’t want some innocent civilian constantly being pulled into the affairs of ghosts, he says glumly, “They want me to ask you out.”

There. Now, Iwaizumi will reject him, and Kageyama and Hinata will finally get out of his business.

“Well, why don’t you?” Iwaizumi asks.

“Why don’t I what?”

“Why don’t you ask me out?”

Tooru opens his mouth to explain why he’s not going to ask Iwaizumi out, when his synapses finish firing properly. He blinks. “...I thought you’d say no.”

“Okay…” Iwaizumi says, and though his expression is completely serious, Tooru swears his dark eyes are gleaming a bit in amusement. “Why would I say no?”

“Because I’m weird,” Tooru tells him. Is he being made fun of?

Iwaizumi shrugs. “Everyone’s a little weird,” he says. “You talk to ghosts. I get crushes on idiots who can talk to ghosts. While I’m trying to fix their haunted toilet.”

“You—have a—” Tooru splutters. “On—on me?”

“Yeah, so, I may not have been totally honest before?” Iwaizumi confesses. “You did freak my colleague out, but I offered to take the house calls from you… I was pretty curious.”

Tooru gapes at him for a few more seconds, before composing himself. He attempts to sweep his hair back, but just ends up knocking the towel off his head. He acts like this was intentional.

“Well, then,” he says, “I’m glad that’s been resolved.” He turns to address the room at large. “You hear that, you monsters? I told you I’d take care of it, so you can stop being the worst, now.” Oh, my god, Iwaizumi is into him.

“You didn’t take care of jack shit,” Kageyama says.

“Language, Tobio-chan!”

“You swear all the time!”

“What… are their names again?” Iwaizumi asks.

“The stupid one is Shouyou,” Tooru says, ignoring Hinata’s continued protesting. “And the stupider one is Tobio.” Tobio joins in.

Iwaizumi tries unsuccessfully to bite back a grin. “Okay. Well… Shouyou, Tobio, I’m Hajime. It’s, uh—nice to meet you?”

The discarded towel suddenly lifts at the corners, like it’s waving at Iwaizumi. He takes a reflexive step backwards, before laughing, somewhat in shock. He waves back.

It makes Tooru feel terribly fond, which he hates; not just because he's only spoken to Iwaizumi five times so far in his life, but also because Hinata and Kageyama deserve an exorcism, not an introduction. But Tooru thinks he will let it slide, this once.

“Would you like a cup of coffee?” he asks Iwaizumi.

“I would…” Iwaizumi says, “but I should probably head home to shower…”

“Stay,” Tooru says lightly, even though his heart is pounding, just a little. “And use mine?”

Iwaizumi grins. “Might as well. I’m pretty familiar with it already.”

This is actually a continuation of a previous ghost!KageHina fic I wrote, which can be read here! And has a sequel here~

[For easy-to-find updates on fic, I have a writing-only blog: @esselle-hq!]