#one of these day I'm gonna learn my lesson and stop drafting directly on Tumblr

[vm-haunts]

...

The spirit is always there with the child, but most of the time they're... resting. Aware, but only barely, of the world passing by them, and later of the child that tried to speak with them.

They're getting better though. At first the only clear thing they can process is the child's voice when he speaks to them. Then they found enough strength to stay with the child, before their little shrine is lost.

By the time the child found a new home again, the spirit is aware enough to hum at him, sometimes, beyond just answering his voice.

The spirit still doesn't have a voice, but they can be heard now.

...

The spirit is flying.

Technically they always had been, but this is different. The spirit is flying because the child is flying, and that feels- familiar.

Flying across the skyline, a city sprawling beneath them, the need to protect burning in their heart... The spirit doesn't have memories, but this familiarity might be the closest they get to having one.

Unexplainably, it filled them with equal parts nostalgia and dread.

But, but. The child is happy. Well fed and warm, in a better place than he had been in- forever. So eager to learn and to help, as he had always been, now happy to finally have the means to do it.

So the spirit is happy too, for the child.

It doesn't stop their humming worry.

...

There is a watch on the table, and the spirit is watching the boy carefully take it apart.

The names are unfamiliar as the boy reads about the innards of a watch, but the spirit feels like he had seen those intricate movemens, held those delicate gears, heard that quiet ticking whirr.

The vibration of a million different movements in motion, the crown turning the gears to set the hands, the escapement of time ticking and whirring until the end of Infinity.

The spirit blinks, and touched his ears. The watch is back in it's box, so he is back besides the boy's beating heart.

The boy sighed, and rubbed his eyes. The watch need a lot more work to fix than he thought. Need a lot more time then he had.

But he will fix it, even if it ends up late.

...

There is a wail building up, had been for a long while now. And this, this would be the final bar to push him past the threshold.

A crack in a dam, in a pressurized tank. In a boy's bones, in a ghost's core.

There is another ghost here, one that doesn't belong. They tried to take the boy from him help. They couldn't.

The spirit- is cradling the boy in their core. Is moving a half dead dying body. Is trying to free, to save, to shield. Is looking at-

A pressure meter digital timer, countdown to an explosion. Always an explosion.

Too late, too helpless, too weak, too useless. Repeat

The other ghost is screaming something, at the body, at the spirit, at the boy.

The spirit swallows down his wail, and hums at the boy instead.

Jason hums back, before the shockwave can reach them.

...

The spirit had no voice, no memory, no shape, no name.

But, it knows that once upon a time, it did. Knows that there is a Before, somewhere, even if it can't remember that. Knows that things must have happened, in that Before, because of what felt familiar.

He has a name, now. Not his name, but he has a name to remember, to trace with his voice, with his fingers.

Jason Todd.

The ghost of a dead boy settled under the hooded angel, and waits for the other boy to wake up.

Little Prayers

A shrine is where gods and spirits resides, a little kid read from a book.

Thinking of that, the kid made a shrine in his corner of the apartment.

It consist of one candle and two prized books, made scared by a few candy wrappers and the prayers of a little child.

A few days later, a tiny wisp of something moved in.

...

The spirit is... weak.

Weak to the point of almost fading, when it found this tiny empty shrine and moved in.

It wasn't always this weak, maybe. Once upon a time, it might even have been strong. With a solid body, a real name.

Now it has none of that, just a wisp that held no memory nor shape.

The spirit confessed to the child, in a voice that isn't made from sound, that it isn't a god, nor can it offer protection in return. That it is sorry for taking the offering but couldn't brought anything in return.

The child doesn't know the difference though, between a god and a spirit, between then and now. Nor does he particularly cares. His little shrine worked and that's the important bit. The child told the spirit exactly that, and got a flicker in the candle light as a nod.

So the spirit stayed, in the little shrine of one candle and two books. Listening to the prayers of a child, spoken more to a friend than a god.

Maybe it can offer something back after all, the spirit thought. A presence, a friend. That'll be... not good or enough, but nice, maybe.

...

Jason is- not lucky, no.

Lucky would mean his mom is healthy, or never had gotten sick; lucky would mean his dad not getting caught, or not needing to work anything illegal at all. That would be real luck, and Jason don't have that kind of luck.

But Jason isn't absolutely unlucky either, he reasoned. His parents aren't good people by the standards of most, but they do love him, when they're able to.

That's better luck than a lot of kids in the Alley.

Jason tells that to the little god- spirit, he isn't sure he knows or cares of the difference. The wisp living in his shrine wavers, and the shadows whispers again that they're sorry they can't help him.

Jason is fine with that. The spirit staying with him in the little shrine is enough luck, maybe.

...

Then, one day, Jason's luck ran out.

Well, not really. There's a lot that can happen to a kid left alone in the Alley, and Jason had avoided the worst of those things so far. It's the same kind of not-quite-luck that he seems to had, and Jason is greatful for it. Sometimes.

Strangely, the spirit follows him still, even without the tiny shrine to hold them. So Jason shares his day and what food he could find, like he always did. He'll eat the offering too, after, like he always did. No sense wasting perfectly fine food.

The spirit flickers sometimes, speaks with him in a way that isn't really speaking, and Jason is... not content, but greatful, maybe, to be not entirely alone.