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There was a ghost looming over Ekko’s shoulder; it followed him everywhere he went. Sometimes, it looked so real he swore he’d be able to turn around and touch it — every time he realized it was some stranger in the market or his exhaustion forcing him to slow down.
That didn’t mean the ghost wasn’t real, that much he knew for sure.
Sometimes it looked realer than the life he’d built for himself, realer than the oasis he’d carved out in his grief. It floated around, never too far but never close; he’d lose it in a heartbeat if he could.
But that had never been a possibility, not for him, not in the Undercity, so he got drunk on fruity alcohol and talked to it instead, wondering what people would think if they saw him like this, out of his mind and defenseless by choice. Grief , Benzo used to say when Ekko was young and the closest thing to a father he had was still around, makes people stupid . The words didn’t mean much to him then.
The boy savior , Jinx would taunt. It was stupid, really, he was no savior if he couldn’t save everyone — and he’d long accepted that he’d never save Powder, he’d always lose Powder.
It was the kind of thought that bounced around his head as he felt the gravel dig into his back, stuck between his shoulders, lying on some dirty pavement with the kind of cheap liquor you’d only ever find in the Undercity. It was a pathetic form of self-indulgence, and one he didn't care to examine because, on nights like these, it was him, his ghost, and his fruity wines.
“Maybe you should stop mooning over a dead girl.” The ghost stated, plopping down next to him, with its characteristic sneer. He wondered how he could even hear it when its voice was so soft and the continuous noise of the constant running and scratching of the Undercity never ceased.
“She was the love of my life, okay?” He muttered, eyes half-closed, as he sneered back just as bitter, and doubly as ugly.
“You were ten , you hardly had a life to speak of.” It snorted, wholly unimpressed by him, and he wondered what kind of fuckass battle with his psyche he was forcing himself into having. Wondered why he was somehow losing.
“Yeah, well, I’m older now, and I haven’t exactly changed my mind.”
“Yeah, again, that’s because you’re mooning over a dead girl .”
“Your point?”
“My point is you could get over yourself and do something .”
“Powder is dead .” He was starting to sound desperate even to himself.
“And Jinx is not .”
“She’s also not the girl I fell in love with.”
The ghost snorted derisively, and Ekko knew what was coming before it spoke — they’d done this dance a thousand times before. He felt the rumble of footsteps shake the floor against his back.
“Sure I’m not.”
Ekko really hated facing who he was actually talking to. It felt like a failure every time, and as such, he’d gotten good at stalling, pushing it back more and more — he wondered if one day he’d get it to stop entirely. He couldn’t let himself admit he’d miss it, but both of them knew he would.
“Wow, twelve minutes before you looked at me. That's a new record, Wonder Boy.”
“Shut up, Jinx.”
“And yet you wonder how I possibly slipped away from you,” the ghost — not her, never her, always the ghost — snorted.
“Whatever,” he snapped, finding his fuse growing shorter as his memories grew more vivid. He stared down at the pink bottle with utter betrayal, like it didn’t end up like this every time. Ekko knew better but he didn’t care enough to be better — it was funny, in an ironic sort of way, considering how he berated Jinx.
That thought was out of his head as soon as it came, though, Ekko and Jinx — they weren't the same. Scar always snarled at him to get the thought out of his head. He said it was turning him soft, and Ekko always pretended he didn’t know what he was talking about; it got easier with time, pretending like Powder and Jinx and whoever resided in the spaces between the two hadn’t drawn out the outline of his person.
“Hey,” he said suddenly, “remember how you used to tell me you were cursed and I always thought we were just playing pretend again?”
The ghost huffed, and Ekko wondered if he still knew the girl so well he could get her exact mannerisms down the quirk of her lips so well from memory, or if she’d changed so much he was talking to a stranger. He knew reality always toed the line between both, a comfortable middle, but he pretended it was the first anyway.
“Yeah, sure.”
“I think I’m cursed too,” he breathed out, feeling how the cold air was starting to make his lungs ache from the inside out, “think it was contagious?”
“Ooh, do share,” the ghost grinned, clapping its — never her, never her, never her — hands gleefully, like Ekko was just some big joke. Maybe he really did know her well enough, even now, even as Jinx. She sure did have a way of making him feel like a fool. The sound was muted like it was being careful not to startle him, though, and Ekko wondered if he was that desperate for her compassion.
“I’m literally talking to a ghost right now, what more could I possibly mean by that?”
“Should we circle back to the whole pining after a dead girl thing?” He wished the Undercity was quieter, as he heard a shout nearby, her incessant taunting gave him enough of a headache on its own.
“Ugh, you were always smarter than me.”
“Aw,” she cooed, and he felt like the voice was whispering in his ear, “Powder never thought so.”
Ekko briefly considered taking another shot of alcohol before deciding that no, actually, he just needed to be shot, period. Maybe Jinx would actually do him that favor if he were to ask. The thought sent him into a fit of manic giggles, and he once again wished they were kids laughing the world away together. Leaning against each other on the old dirt roads by the mines.
Now that Ekko was older he knew it was no place for children, but he yearned for it more than anything; he hadn’t visited the area since Powder died. Not when she always insisted that one day she’d do right by her parents, and build something for the workers. She kept talking about masks and ventilation and air, and Ekko was far too young to know he’d miss her forever.
The thought compelled him to speak in his stupor. “I had all the time in the word to convince her.”
The ghost giggled, laughing and cackling its way into manic laughter like Ekko was one big joke. It sounded more real, more solid than he’d ever heard it, and he wondered if it was the sound or the drink that was making his head spin. “Ekko, the fucking wonder boy , running out of time—” She gasped.
“Yeah, yeah, laugh it up,” he muttered, “not like any of that matters anymore.”
Then, drunker by the minute: “I don’t know if I’ll ever fall out of love with her— we used to fit, you know? At least I thought so when I was a kid, the adults always cooed about how perfect we were together; partners in crime. Powder decided we’d get married when we were six,” he snorted, “I don’t think either of us knew what that meant but Vander said to marry your best friend and Vi said getting married meant being together forever so I backed her up every time. We never understood why the adults would laugh at us.”
It didn’t answer, likely bored with him already, but he kept talking anyway because delirium did that to people and Ekko had nothing to hide from the ghosts of his own life; they’d been there through all of it. “I still don’t understand. I think I would’ve done it, if she’d have let me.”
He sensed hesitation, then, softness, almost sad. “She would’ve let you.”
It made him look up, surprised. For a moment, he swore it looked solid, he swore he’d reach out and hold onto it as desperately as he felt and he’d pretend they still fit like they used to and there was no mural by the tree, and no grief in the Undercity. He was still the confused child he’d been then; he wondered if he’d stopped aging when she’d left him for good.
“I miss her,” he croaked out.
Suddenly, the ghost was quiet, he crawled to it, reaching out for something solid. He tried to take its hand, some part of him begging it would go right through and the other praying it would be warm and beating, even if it ripped his own off. It would be worth it.
“I miss her so much I talk to her goddamn ghost — I’m sitting here talking to Jinx’s ghost .”
He wondered if he was crying. She always teased him about how often he cried, he was slow to anger and fast to tears, nothing like the Undercity sky he’d been raised under. She always comforted him anyway.
The hand was solid.
He wasn’t sure how long she’d been there. He didn’t care as much as he should.
The skin was warm, and the pulse under it was beating so fast he wondered if it would cause a heart attack.
It took him another few seconds to realize what that meant.
Everything around him fell silent.
Selfishly, he held onto her hand for another few seconds, memorizing how it felt since he’d last been able to. It was still soft, but the palms had grown calloused with time, with brilliance, and he wished he had the time to compare how the other felt.
He intertwined their fingers instead, too sluggish to pretend to care about his real duties, and too tired to bring himself to be afraid.
He wished more than anything that she’d wipe off his tears, the way she clumsily did when they were little, with her whole palm haphazardly pressed against his cheeks, and an angry furrow to her brow. She used to say it was unfair to make him sad. He wondered what she’d say now.
She probably thought he was pathetic.
He knew he was pathetic.
But she wasn’t letting go, and Ekko had no dignity to speak of anymore so he kept his desperate grip until she pulled him off herself. “I’m— I’m not talking about Powder anymore.”
Her voice came out bitter, but he couldn’t help but notice how her fingers curled around his when he said that. It made him feel like he’d melt, pliable and molten. “Sure you aren't.”
He shook his head, slowly, everything still spun at a disorienting rate.
“Do you think Jinx would have let me?”
He could feel her dropping his hands, hear the scuffle of her boots against the harsh gravel, backing away. “Jinx isn’t dead yet, wonder boy.”
“I did tell your ghost I wasn’t pining over a dead girl,” he snorted, watching her leave and knowing he shouldn’t. Indulgence was a curse, Benzo said that too; he knew this fully well as he watched her leave.
She was halfway up the building when she spoke again. She sounded panicked and flighty, wholly hysterical, and wholly like the Jinx he’d grown accustomed to — distant, guarded. She left as soon as she came.
Yet when she spoke all Ekko heard were the words.
“She might let you.”