#i wish i bought that ouija board door mat when i was thinking about it

[lostinfic]

Lost, a 'deep' prompt if you have the time or interest: "Trick" for Will & Holly, lost love/love lasting beyond death, 'communication' from the other side. Thanks!

Dear Nonny, might not be exactly what you had in mind, but I hope you enjoy it anyway.

Game Night. 2/2 

[Part 1]  [Ao3]

Pairing: Will Burton (The Escape Artist) x Holly Shawcross (True Love)

Rating: Teen

Word count: 2.4k

Summary: Fluff and some angst. Will and Holly are part of a group of friends who meet every week to play board games.  Although there is more than friendship growing between them, their pasts prevent them from acting on their feelings. Until one week, they play with a Ouija board.

A/N: I also wrote a fem!Will x Holly : Sweater Weather. Some details might escape you if you haven’t seen the shows, but I think you can still enjoy the story.

○ Trick or treat prompts // All my autumn fics

CW: past death/grief (Will’s wife) 

🍂

The sky was a pink shade of gray, a reminder that the sun still existed despite the clouds. Sheets of rain slashed through beams of street light. Holly cracked opened a window to let the soothing sound and scent of rain permeate the air of her small flat. She wished for lightening and thunder.

This week, game night was at her home. Sometimes, work permitting, Will arrived early, under the pretense of helping her set up. “Setting up” usually involved folding out a card table at one end of her kitchen table for extra seating, and then just chatting until the others arrived. But she doubted he would come early tonight.

All week she’d waited for a text from Will, an apology or a simple “hello”, even a “sorry wrong person” would have soothed her worries. Holly herself had started typing more than one text she never sent. She shouldn’t have rushed out of his car, she should’ve stayed and pretended it was nothing but a joke. She didn’t want to lose him as a friend even if she longed for more.

She’d channeled her nervousness about game night into crafts: a garland of paper ghosts fashioned from the pages of an old book, a centerpiece of squashes and mini-pumpkins she had no intention of ever eating and charcoal sketches of creepy Victorian kids. She had to talk herself out of adopting a black cat; she could barely take care of herself let alone a pet.

She sat at her kitchen table and arranged the pretzel sticks, candy corn and Reese’s pieces into a pattern. She was so absorbed by her task, she jumped when someone knocked at the door. It was still early for the game, so it had to be Will. She sprung from her chair.

“Come in.”

Sabrina and Jerome came in. “Hope you don’t mind we’re a tad early, we dropped off the kids at a friend and it was closer than we thought.”

“Isn’t Will already here?” Jerome asked.

“I am.” Will peeked inside from around the door.

Jerome and Sabrina shuffled over to let him in without stepping off the door mat.

Holly waved at him shyly, he didn’t avoid her gaze which she supposed was a good sign. He even took his usual place next to her. She was dying to ask if he was pretending nothing had happened or had changed his mind about her. But she couldn’t ask in front of their friends, and her home was too small to find a private corner. Nevertheless, her mood increased tenfold, and by the time all seven of her friends had arrived, she was dancing on her chair to “Monster Mash”.

They alternated between playing Dungeons & Dragons one week and regular board games the other, either old ones they loved or new acquisitions. Today being Halloween, someone suggested they played with a Ouija board.

Some groaned, among them Patrick who preferred games like Risk and Settlers of Catan. “It’s not a game!” he argued.

“Back in the days, it was marketed as family entertainment,” Sabrina replied. “Parker Brothers distributed it.”

“C’mon just for a bit, just for laughs,” someone else enthused.

“Wait, let me set the mood,” Holly said.

She selected a Halloween playlist on her mobile. She brought her collection of candles to the table and closed the lights. The scent of burnt match and melted wax rose with the smoke.

There was a thrill in the air, they all exchanged glances and giggles. Everyone, except Will, wanted to put their fingers on the planchette. They tugged it this way and that, spelling swear words and booing like ghosts.

“Let’s do this seriously,” Jasna said. “Be silent.”

It took a moment, but everyone calmed down. Jasna cleared her throat and breathed in deeply. Holly snickered, and Jasna’s mouth twitched from repressed laughter.

“Alright.” She placed the planchette so the hole in it was positioned above the G. “I am trying to contact the spirit world.”

She had a deep voice for a woman and a Bosnian accent that lended a hint of mystery to her words.

First they moved the planchette across the board, anti-clockwise, to warm it up, then Jasna asked: “Are there any spirit in the room?”

The planchette moved to “yes”.

Holly’s hair stood on end. She bit the thumb nail of her free hand.

“How many spirits are in the room?”

Jasna closed her eyes. The planchette dragged down the board to the numbers.

One.

Two.

Everyone laughed, notes shrill with unease. It kept going. Three.

Four.

Five.

Sabrina gulped. Jerome looked over his shoulder.

Holly scooted closer to Will. She felt a prickled on the back of her neck. A candle flame flared up, and almost burnt her sleeve. “Fuck,” she whispered.

“What are your names?”

This time the planchette jerked to the letter “K”, zigzagged across the board as if wrestled over, then touched the “A”. Will dropped his hands. Then it pointed the “T”. When it moved towards the “E”, Will stood up, startling them all. He clenched his jaw and glared around the table, breathing fast through his nose. Then he just grabbed his coat and stormed out.

“Which one of you arsehole did that?” Holly asked.

They all exchanged suspicious looks but none dared admit culpability.

*

Will drove around aimlessly, swearing under his breath. His hands shook so he gripped the wheel tighter. His knuckles turned white.

How could his friends do that to him? With one joke they’d revived the ache in his chest, like taking a scalpel to a stitched wound.

Heavy rain blurred the traffic lights and road signs. He felt dizzy. He shouldn’t drive in this state. But he didn’t know where to go. He didn’t want to go home, Jamie was at a slumber party, all by himself he would just churn these dark thoughts in his head. Why was he so freaked out? Ghosts weren’t real.

Will slammed the breaks. His whole body jerked forward. The wheel stamped in his chest with a long honk. He’d nearly hit a pedestrian.

He parked the car on the side of the road. His heartbeat drummed in his ears. He rested his forehead on the wheel and took deep breaths.

It was only a joke. They didn’t not it would hurt so much. None of them had known Kate. None of them had seen the shell of a man he was after her death. None of them knew he’d murdered for her… In fact, he’d never told any of them about Kate at all. His blood ran cold. No, he’d told Holly, but he didn’t believe her capable of pulling such a cruel prank.

*

In Holly’s flat, candles were still burning but everyone had gone. She’d texted Will and rearranged the candies’ pattern while waiting for his reply.

Instead of texting her back, he showed up on her doorstep. His hair dripped with rain. He smelled of cigarette, so she knew the whole event had really unnerved him.

Without a word, he pulled out a chair and slouched on it.

“I’ll make you a cuppa,” she said softly.

She popped the kettle on and browsed her tea collection. She bought far more than she drank, she couldn’t resist a whimsical name– “Buddha’s blend” or “seaberry spa”. But tonight called for traditional English tea. She debated which cup to pick, yellow to cheer him up or green for hope. She chose one that said “you are deer to me” underlined by a set of antlers. He smiled at the pun, though very briefly.

Holly twirled the tea bag in her mug, watching the dark swirls it left in its wake. She did it with her left hand so the right one could rest on the table, close to Will’s.

The thunder she’d wished for began. Ominous rumbles, like a giant cracking his knuckles.

In the other room, the Halloween playlist ended, and an old jazz one started. Notes of saxophone and a lamenting blues voice travelled through the wall like something from the past.

“Did you tell them about my wife?” he asked.

“Of course not, you told me that in confidence. I think some reality show starlet called Kate died last week, that’s probably what that was about.”

He bit the inside of his cheek, nodding unconvincingly.

A lightning strike illuminated his face. He was looking at the Ouija board still on the table. Whoever had brought it over, hadn’t wanted it back.

“Do you want to try again?” she asked him.

He hesitated. “Do you believe in spirits, Holly?”

“I’m open to the idea.”

It was too romantic a notion for her to discard entirely, the possibility of a connexion beyond death.

Will picked up the game, and they settled in the living room. They sat on the shaggy carpet, their backs against the couch and placed the board on the coffee table.

Will shook his hands, clenched and unclenched his fists. She wanted to pat his shoulder or rub his back, something to comfort and reassure him, but she couldn’t help thinking that if Kate’s ghost was still around, she wouldn’t like Holly touching her husband.

They placed their fingertips lightly upon the planchette. There were no giggles or joking around like earlier. Her stomach was heavy, her mouth dry.

“Kate, are you still here?” he asked.

Thunder answered him.

They waited. One minute. Two minutes.

“Kate?” he asked again with a tremor in his voice.

The planchette didn’t move.

Will sighed and leaned back against the couch.

“Are you disappointed?” she asked him.

“I don’t know… I’m relieved, I think.”

“Relieved?”

He rubbed the back of his neck. “The reason I freaked out so much is that I’ve been thinking about Kate a lot lately. More than usual, I mean.”

“Oh.”

“I wonder what she would think. I wonder– I’m afraid it would make her sad that there’s someone else in my life.”

“You met someone?”

His meaning didn’t dawn on her until she met his gaze, his eyebrows slightly arched, his front teeth in his bottom lip.

“Me?”

“Aye. You’ve become important to me. Holly.”

Holly hid her blushing face against the couch cushion, peering sideways. She touched the tips of his fingers, and he slouched down so his face was closer to hers.

“You’re important to me too. I like you a lot.”

He smiled, a wide grin, thin lines fanned out from the corners of his eyes. The kind of smile that can only come from the happiness and heady relief to know one’s feelings are returned. A smile that mirrored her own.

She felt like her heart was glowing. She wanted to kiss him, right then and there, but he had more to say about his late wife.

He entwined their fingers and gathered his thoughts.

“I don’t want someone to replace Kate,” he said. “She used to say my brain was full of holes, but sometimes it feels like it’s my heart that’s full of holes.”

Holly touched his chest, and he placed his hand over hers.

“She’s still in there, but I need someone who is really here. Someone whose voice I can hear. Someone I can touch.”

Holly might have wondered if she could stand sharing his heart with a ghost, but he grazed her cheek with the back of his fingers, lightly, hesitantly, and she melted on the spot. She leaned into his touch, and he cupped her face firmly this time. His long fingers cradled her jaw, his thumb stroke her cheekbone, his gaze dropped to her lips.

“Oh, Will…”

A window flew open, wind toppled a pencil holder and scattered a stack of art prints across the floor.

Will jerked his head back, and Holly yelped. Her hand flew to her chest where he heart raced.

He closed the window while she collected the fallen items with shaky hands. She turned on all the lights in the room.

“That scared me half to death,” Holly said.

“Maybe it was Kate’s ghost.”

“Don’t even joke about this,” she said good-naturedly. She elbowed him lightly in the ribs.

They sat on her overstuffed sofa, it dipped in the middle, bringing them closer.

“Holly, are you all right with this?”

She rubbed her thumb in her palm. In a way, a widower was an improvement on a married man, and even on a divorcee.

“I have my own baggage,” she said carefully. “So I don’t know how it will go. But I feel so close to you, you know?”

“I know.”

“If you like, how come you reacted that way last week, when I took off my shirt?”

“You caught me by surprise!” His voice hitched an octave.

“Yeah, I don’t know what I was thinking.” She bit her bottom lip.

“I have to say, I admire your boldness.”

“Yeah? Would you like a do-over?”

“You mean…?

“I’ll take off my jumper again, and you make sure you have a better reaction.”

“Okay.”

“D’you need a minute to think about it?”

“Aye.”

She worked hard to hold back a grin when his brow furrowed in concentration. He signaled with a nod that she could go ahead. Holly rose to her knees and grabbed the hem of her sweater, displaying more confidence than she felt.

“Sod it,” Will mumbled before lunging for a kiss before she’d pulled it off completely.

Holly laughed against his mouth, but he pressed on. There was an anxiety to it, as if he might lose his nerve any second. His back muscles were rigid under her fingers. She moved her lips slowly as she rubbed up and down his spine.

The moment he truly yielded to his feelings, his weight pressed against her, and they fell back on the couch, mouths still locked.

His lips were eager, his hands roamed her stomach. He kissed down her neck as her legs cradled his narrow hips.

He broke the kiss to look at her. His eyes were bright, his hair a dishevelled.

“Much better reaction,” she said with a laugh.

He pecked her lips, then rested his head on her chest. She stroke his hair as he hugged her tight.

He stayed all night.

They marathoned classic black and white horror movies. Bela Lugosi grunted and Vincent Price laughed maniacally, as Will and Holly ate all the candies. They kissed too many times to keep up with the plots, and talked about everything long past midnight, never breaking physical contact. A happy tangle of limbs. They had so much to discover about the other now that they weren’t trying to hide their feelings.

They fell asleep in the wee hours, and Will’s phone alarm woke him up not much later.

“Don’t go,” Holly mumbled, clinging to his warm body.

He allowed himself two more snoozes before separating from her.

“I’ll see you soon,” he said, and kissed her head.

Despite the lack of sleep, he felt renewed. His patched-up heart beat more freely.

On his phone, he had several texts and voicemails from his concerned friends. He couldn’t hold a grudge for long given their prank had lead to finally kissing Holly.

On the way to his car, he whistled an old jazz song. But as he put his hands in his pockets, he found a green apple he didn’t remember putting there.

Fin

(More Will x Holly?)