Chapter Text
William Wisp is dead.
He died, and he’s a ghost now. It’s a fact that he’s struggled to accept, but it’s still a fact; Hell, all the old ghost hunting equipment he had stashed away beeped crazily at his presence, like he was eternally playing Doodle Jump next to them.
Another fact was that being dead was extremely fucking boring. This old mansion looked great, sure, but there wasn’t much to do when you’re incorporeal 90% of the time. The wisps had gotten a lot friendlier to him after he’d kicked the bucket, but they’d lost their novelty after a while.
He had no phone, he couldn’t turn on the TV for too long— or else a technician will swing by the house, which scared the shit out of him when it happened —and he was limited to writing poetry in the dust since it was tricky to both concentrate on holding a pen, writing with it and coming up with words at the same time.
Although there was something very poetic about writing in dust, it was an irritating medium to work with in practice, he’d come up with something cool like wolves howling at the moon only for all of his work to be erased when a strong breeze blows through.
At least he could watch the rats.
You never really appreciate rats until’ they’re the only entertainment you have in your (un)life, but they’re surprisingly diverse and complex. He’s watched them for a couple of generations— they don’t live very long —and they were like if wolves were very small and craved cheese, there were even alpha rats.
His favourites for this generation were Mochi and Ratmo, they’d both began charting out a new place for the colony to live after a pipe had burst recently, rendering their current nest nigh-uninhabitable.
Ratmo was scurrying under the floorboards of the foyer when he noticed Someone outside of the house, barely glimpsing the smear of blue through the frosted-over windows; This was just a technician, right? Or- Or even a groundskeeper!
Someone else was with them, harder to notice at first glance. He pressed his face against the window, curiosity gnawing at him as he squinted to try and piece together the figures of the strangers. They didn’t look like regular technicians, but he didn’t know how long he’s been here, and they could’ve — I don’t know, advanced plumber technology since he died?
Could they be burglars? This house has been sitting unoccupied for a while, and all of its stuff was still the same way he left it, valuables and all. He pressed himself even closer to the glass, trying to get a better look as he unconsciously phased through it, the figures clearing from incomprehensible smears to people he could actually try and identify.
The first thing he noticed was Blue was wearing a superhero(?) outfit, or at the very least some sort of elaborate cosplay, and the other person was wearing a lawyer-y suit; Both of which were definitely not plumber-wear, and were both equally concerning.
Maybe they were just both taking a walk? A walk on private property???
”—With these lovely 80 acres of lush woods, this classical victorian property has more than enough rooms to host anything that you could need. It comes fully furnished in pristine condition, with hardly any pests included.“
”Uh huh, and how much is this place, exactly?“
Oh no.
William had no idea why this Blue guy was humouring the other, the suit dude was obviously sketchy — a black and red energy around him that was almost familiar but not quite…
”Well.. We can discuss that after this tour, but between you and me? The owner is a big fan of what you’re doing over there at WATCH, so I suspect you’ll get quite a steal, if I do say so myself.“ The suit guy then grinned, which was ANOTHER sign Blue should run for the hills, but there was no sign of fleeing so far.
”Great! Although the outside is all very lovely, if we’re going to buy this place I'd like to see inside.“
”Of course, of course.“
The two of them stepped onto the front porch, and WIlliam felt the pit in his stomach deepen as the doors of the house opened like a waiting maw, the hinges crea-a-a-king open as they made their way inside the mansion.
He didn’t like the idea of his resting place being invaded, he’s- he’s spent so long alone in this godforsaken mansion that he feels vaguely nauseous at the thought of new people inhabiting it. Being dead was peaceful, no societal expectations, no one to shove you in lockers, no shadow demons actively trying to eat you because you’re the biggest target, no small talk and most importantly; no interacting with people.
What would it look like if someone moved into his room, occupied his space? Would they tear down his posters, would they paint the walls to hide the marks they left behind?
The suit guy smacked one of the wooden support beams with the palm of their hand, ignoring the ominous creaking. ”She’s as sturdy as she ever will be!“ They crowed, William felt sick.
What did superheroes even want with this dusty old place, anyways? Blue hadn’t given any useful information so far, instead only remarking on how the kitchen could cook a ’boatload’ of stroganoff, whatever that means. Maybe it was a codeword? He floated after them as they made their way deeper into the house, shooing away a few curious wisps.
He didn’t want them to know he was here, and he certainly didn’t want them knowing the wisps were here. He just- just didn’t want anyone here, no matter how lonely it may be.
Oh. The lights were flickering.
”Are there wiring problems?“ Blue asked, looking directly up at the dying lightbulb, they were going to get spots in their vision if they kept staring like that.
Suit guy shot a critical look around the room, brown eyes sharp, looking for something; It was another close call with batting a wisp away before they saw, close enough that he was worried they might say something. ”...Not that I know of!“
And with that the tour resumed as normal, giving William more time to think on this whole situation.
Namely: How the hell was he going to prevent this?
He didn’t want to hurt anyone, and he didn’t want anyone to find out about him either, so killing anyone was firmly off the list— The tour passed through the living room and the study, heading down to the basement. —so maybe he could do a little haunting? But heroes probably know a lot about ghosts, and he doesn’t want them to have more motivation to be here; He doesn’t want to be prodded like a lab rat, he had enough of that with his time in Deadwood and with his training.
The two of them re-emerged from the basement, continuing their ascent up onto the second floor, the old stairs creaking under their weight, dampened by the threadbare rug laid across the steps.
”Now, up here is a 6 bed 1 bath, along with a lovely little balcony overlooking the property up those stairs there along with a library. The bedrooms are all fairly spacious, with their own frankly breathtaking views.“ The suit guy wasn’t saying much of anything at all, walking through the hall at a leisurely pace, giving Blue ample time to peer inside the first two bedrooms.
Wait.
Waitwaitwait wait.
HIS ROOM. THEY’RE GOING TO LOOK AT HIS ROOM.
He’d like to say that a cold calm washed over him— or something heroic like that, but all that filled him was a jittery panic, and a bone deep anxiety.
The door to his door is open. All of his stuff is still in there, everything he took with him, and all that he had left. If Blue did buy the place, all of his stuff would either be taken from him or thrown in the trash like they meant nothing; like he meant nothing.
William breaks into a dead sprint, phasing through something in the hurry to get to his door— The doodle of the wisp still there in blue pen ink on the doorframe —clawing his hands through the door in a desperate attempt to close it.
The door rattled and shook before closing with a loud BANG! He heard a ”what the hell was that?“ but he was too focused to really tune into whatever they were saying, trying to make sure the door would stay put.
Footsteps. People talking.
The door may stick and stay closed if they try and opening it but. He can’t risk it, he can’t.
His hand closes around the deadbolt, but since William Wisp is never lucky his tangibility seems to be long gone — with whatever second wind he used to close the door. His fingers shake as they pass through the metal as easy as passing a hand through a cobweb.
HE CAN’T LET THEM IN.
THIS PLACE IS HIS. IT’S HIS DO YOU REMEMBER? IT’S ALL HE HAS GO AWAY GO AWAY GO AWAY GO AWAY GO AWAYGOAWAYGOAWAY
The voices are closer now, no longer a low murmur.
”Do they always do that?“
”Well, it’s an old house. The drafts are quite—“
His mouth tastes like copper and he feels- he feels lightheaded?
He reaches for the power deep in his chest— trying not to think about the hole in it —and called a wisp into his hand, abandoning his non-grip on the lock to cup it gently.
’Please work with me here,’ He tries to think at the wisp as hard as he can, ’I don’t need much, I just need you to be tangible and like- a stick? maybe? Please.’ He closes his hands around it, and prays with his eyes shut tight; Immediately opening them again when he felt his ghost-shaping actually work, which he wasn’t expecting.
William was snapped out of his shock by the sounds outside the door, reminding him he had a job to do to make sure they’d stay away. He unclasped his hands around the object— shaking one of his hands to try and regain feeling in it before he remembered his well. everything —to find a crude hook, quickly shoving it against the deadbolt and using it to lock the door with a decisive click.
The doorknob rattled, it held.
It rattled again, and someone made an annoyed noise.
There was a solid thump as something collided against the door in an attempt to open it, but no dice.
”Blasted doors.... I’m so sorry for the inconvenience.“
”...Did that door just lock?“ Hopefully Blue would be dissuaded.
”Hm. Suppose it did, the way the door closed from the draft must’ve rattled the lock.“
”Ah.“ Damnit.
”I’ll ask the owner for a key later, but shall we continue with the tour? We still have four rooms and a balcony to go through after all.“
He let his shoulders slump, dismissing the wisp from the ghost-shape and watching it dissolve with passive eyes, the embers of the wisp playfully twirling around his fingers for a moment before disappearing entirely.
William let out a sigh, walking over to his bed and sinking down onto it with a dramatic flop, feeling far too tired than he had any right to be. He had no more real motivation to follow the intruders anymore, but he recognized he probably should, even though everything felt like a gentle fog.
He sunk further down into the mattress, wishing he could sleep. It was something he was never quite good at in life, but it was still something he enjoyed.
He ran a hand down his face, til’ he sunk further, down through the bed and onto the hardwood floor.
The metal bars that held up his mattress were a familiar sight to William, and he felt a sudden pang of nostalgia. Maybe he could just lay here for a while, the people wouldn’t do much, right?
—————
The world fucking sucked.
There were cars outside the mansion, although most of them seemed just to be moving trucks, which spelt very bad news for William Wisp.
There only seemed to be a couple of people, at least. It seemed like a redheaded dude was doing all of the heavy lifting, stacking obscene amounts of boxes in their arms only limited by the height of the doorframe.
They stomped through the house through to the living room, dropping the boxes next to the couch with a large clatter. They ran back outside faster than he could blink, definitely confirming they had some sort of powers, which was cool! He wasn’t excited for the chaos it might bring, but still; There hadn’t been many powered people in Deadwood— aside from the people who had the sight —and the people who did usually had mundane, almost garden variety powers.
He tried his best to follow the red blur, heading back out to the porch to watch them unload all of their junk.
...would it just be blue guy and red guy living here?
Oh, nope. There was another person with purple hair coming out of the car - he was lucky that everyone so far had such distinct hair colours, it made it easier to come up with names for them.
Purple turned back to the car, adjusting their headphones and saying something that he couldn’t quite catch; Blue emerging from the drivers side door and saying something back, causing Purple to take off their headphones to— ???? Are those elf ears?
Purple started walking up to the house, acting as if they didn’t look like a Final Fantasy LXXVIII character.
Okay, yeah. Sure! Why not?? This might as well happen.
”Well, It’s certainly bigger than our old base.“ Purple said, a bittersweet note in their voice. They slung their bag off their shoulder, placing it on the old mahogany bench in the entry-way.
Blue came up behind them— passing through William in the process —and put a hand on Purple’s shoulder, shivering a bit. ”I know it’s not the base, but it’s the best I could find on such short notice.. Besides! Isn’t this place beautiful? and it’s got rooms that aren’t in the basement!“ They shook their shoulder lightly, smiling.
”IT’S-“ Red came running in with a box, all but throwing it to the ground before zipping right back out. ”OLD-“ They came back, repeating the process. ”AND-“ ”DUSTY!“
”Hey! Older is better sometimes! Means it’s more solid.“ Blue smacked a hand against the same support beam the realtor had, also ignoring the creak it let out.
Red skidded into the room again, dusting their hands off with a flourish. ”Alright, that was all the boxes, anything else you need help lifting??“ They said, still buzzing with energy. They flopped down on the couch dramatically when Blue hummed a negative, sneezing at all of the dust that came out of the dust-sheet covering it.
”Speaking of, you boys still need to pick out your rooms!“ Blue slapped Purple’s back solidly, beginning to tromp up the stairs.
Red and Purple stared for a long moment before Red shouted out a ”RACE YOU THERE!!“ and hopped the couch. Purple scrambled for a second, not being able to beat Red to the stairs, but they grabbed the side of the banister and started to climb up - Red being slowed down by the turn of the stairs.
Blue stood in the hallway, watching as Purple tackled Red just as they were about to cross the imaginary finish line, both of them tumbling over it. They scuffled for a moment, both of them trying to gain the upper hand before they realized they were right at Blue’s feet.
”Tide! Who won??“ Purple asked, shoving Red down to push himself up, yelping as he was yanked back down to the floor again.
Blue- or Tide hummed, tapping a finger against his chin. ”I don’t know, it looked like a tie.“ The name Tide rang a bell, but he wasn’t quite sure where he remembered it from. It certainly sounded like a superhero name, at least.
Purple and Red shared another look, before wordlessly playing rock paper scissors.
They both play paper for the first round, Purple stays on paper but Red switches to rock.
Red pumped their fist and Purple scowled, getting up properly so they could look dramatically down the stairs.
”Dibs on the biggest bedroom!“
Tide crossed his arms, a smile on his face. ”I’m afraid not, I already have dibs on the biggest room, since I got up here first.“
While Tide and Red bickered Purple seemed to be checking out the rooms, opening a few and poking around them with a detached curiosity. They seemed to take interest in the room with the best view of the forest, taking a second to stare out the window.
They left the room after wistfully staring, heading to the next door down — To his room.
Shit, was it ..?
The doorknob clicked as it met resistance, the lock holding strong. Thank god— or whatever was out there —because he did not want to share a room with a total stranger, even though they were a cool elf-thing.
”Hey, Tide. What’s in here?“ Purple pointed over to the door, rattling the doorknob for emphasis. Please, no.
”Probably another bedroom, why?“
”Well, it’s locked eh?“ Purple again, tried to turn the doorknob.
”Nahh,“ Red piped up, trying to scoot Purple away from the door. ”It’s probably just stuck. Here-“ They tried the doorknob, and again, to no one's surprise the door didn’t magically open. They shoulder-checked the door like the suit guy had before, but they didn’t make a grunt of pain like the other guy did, a grim determination on their face instead.
The lights flickered once, twice.
”Uh-“ Purple began to speak up, but was cut off by Red rattling the door, gentle but not at the same time.
”Hey, hey hey- Dakota!“ Tide clapped his hands together, and Red’s head snapped to look at Tide. ”Don’t break the door down, the key’s probably lying around somewhere. It’d also be a pain to ship a door all the way over here.“
Red let go of the door with a huff, the door looking significantly worse-for-wear which made William feel. Not that good!
Dakota cracked his knuckles. ”I only would’ve broken the door a little, it would’ve been fine!“ He sighed, peeking into the other bedrooms for a cursory glance, settling on a room near the stairs to the balcony, deeming it the ’second-largest room’.
Purple (He really needed to find out their name, even though he preferred his nicknames) had claimed the room next to his, probably for the window.
There was a beat of silence as Purple stared down the stairs. ”...Say, Dakota. Could you carry my boxes up to my room for me?“ They said, giving him an expression that shockingly resembled a wet cat, or maybe a kicked puppy. Dakota smiled, and then closed the door to his new room, leaving Purple to stare mournfully down the stairs.
——
It had only been 5 hours with these new people in his house, and William was beginning to feel overwhelmed already. There’d been a flurry of activity when Red and Purple were setting up their rooms, Red helping Blue bring their boxes up to the master bedroom, pointedly excluding Purple until’ Purple gave him sad enough puppy-dog eyes.
Their room decor was... Pretty normal for people his age, to be honest. He was kind of expecting some grand superhero stuff, but now that he was thinking about it, how would that even work?
Purple had some video game posters up on their walls, which was kind of ironic, but they also had put some knives up on the wall via a wall-mount, which he guessed could be a superhero thing? Or they could just be a knife collector or something.
Red, Well, Dakota had a more minimalist room, which was kind of surprising considering he seemed more energetic from what he could see. There was just a desk, a skateboard, a mattress on the ground and a dresser. There was the starts of a PC being set up on the desk, but nothing much.
There was also a lot more screaming, more than necessary. He doesn’t think he ever screamed this much when he was alive, and definitely not in this house; This house was always quiet, pretty much empty, too.
It starts with him trying to get Tide to leave first. William doesn’t know how he made the lights flicker before, so when Tides sits down in the study he floats over to the light switch, flicking it on and off as fast as he could.
He looks around, the old leather chair creaking as the hero stared up at the ceiling light. ”Hm, we should really get that checked out. We don’t want another base burning down! Haha.“ He said to no one, the silence hanging in the air like a cloud before Tide turned back around to the tablet he was focusing on.
William tried flickering the lights a couple more times, but it seemed Tide was now steadfastly ignoring all outside stimuli aside from a light shiver when he waved his hand through the hero.
His second attempt was just as successful, he had tried to freak out Purple by stomping on the floorboards above their room, but all that garnered was just a shrug.
He’d even floated above Dakota’s bed at one point, whispering ’Getoutgetoutgetoutgetout’ over and over. William couldn’t even tell if Dakota had heard him, since the teens behavior never changed the three days he’d been trying this tactic.
Well! At least he still had the rat colony to watch; The new owners hadn’t bothered with putting rat poison out yet, which was a blessing in disguise. Mochi and Ratmo were still alive and well, although a bit skinnier since the rat-resources (ratsources?) were stretched so thin with the stress of humans in the house.
Ratmo was on yet another scouting mission, carefully creeping along the kitchen; They were obviously excited by the scent of delectable crumbs that were left behind by the new inhabitants.
The little rat squeezed their way through a hole gnawed through the back of the cupboard, wiggling cautiously out of the cupboard and down onto the cupboard with a thump. Ratmo clearly had a gameplan if the way they walked was of any indication — nose in the air and long purposeful strides.
Has Ratmo already done this route before? He supposes he hasn’t gotten much time to watch the rats in-between attempted hauntings, which kind of sucked; He’d have to check back in on them more frequently, he didn’t want to miss the ongoing battle between Mochi and Lizard for pack hierarchy.
There was an open pizza box at the end of Ratmo’s path— like a pot of gold at the end of the rat-rainbow —that they quite enthusiastically leaped into, already pulling at a stale pizza slice in hopes of bringing it back to the colony.
Ratmo froze halfway out of the box, and William didn’t know why. He scanned the surroundings quickly and— oh. There were reflective blue eyes in the shadows, looming, ready to strike, their pupils dilated from the low-light levels.
The rat tried to run the best they could after getting over the instinctive freeze response in the presence of a much larger predator, but they only got around halfway across the counter before a knife slammed down through them with a CRUNCH and a pitiful squeak.
William stared for a long moment.
Purple ducked closer to pick up their new rat shish-kebab, apparently unbothered by the blood splatter.
Like they had no remorse, no sympathy for yet another creature running the rat race that is life.
They just- THEY JUST FUCKING KILLED RATMO?????
William thought Ratmo would go down from gnawing on old wiring, or maybe from being flushed down a toilet like the rats in the titular Flushed Away; He wasn’t expecting a murder, one more personal than just a simple rat poison or rat trap.
And as if to add insult to injury, Purple raised their fancy little knife and— oh god —took a bite out of poor little Ratmo.
William was going easy on them earlier, he didn’t want to actually hurt any of them, despite how much he wanted them all to leave the mansion. But this? If all of his blood wasn’t continuously dripping out of it, he would’ve felt it go cold.
He tried being Casper, but if they were going to do this? He could sure as hell give them a fucking poltergeist.
”VYNCENT?? ARE YOU EATING RATS AGAIN?“ Dakota yelled out, interrupting William’s excellent-verging-on-manslaughter revenge plans.
Vyncent was his name, huh?
He’d show them all.