Chapter 1: You Don’t Need Poltergeist’s For Sidekicks
So this is a story I wrote based on a song that I like, Ghosting by Mother Mother from their album O My Heart. I'll write more song based stories to, you can suggest different songs for me to write about or I'll just do my own things. It doesn't matter too much, this might just turn into a writing dump of sorts. Anyway, enjoy!
(I wrote this a while ago, so I'm sorry for any spelling mistakes. Content warning: This his homosexuality, a ghost, and mentions of drowning. Please don't read if you're sensitive to these themes.)
Jeremy had been watching Alex ever since he had died. He was completely infatuated by Alex and everything Alex did. He would follow Alex almost everywhere the boy went, except of course when Alex was using the bathroom. Jeremy may be a ghost, but he wasn't a perve. Although, it didn't matter much anyway because Alex couldn't see Jeremy.
When Jeremy had died and first found Alex he would try to get the boy to see him. Jeremy would write his name on fogged over windows and on Alex's notebooks. Of course, Alex still couldn't see Jeremy, despite all of his attempts. One night Jeremy had gotten angry at Alex and he knocked the books off of Alex's book shelves, broke the lamp on Alex's nightstand, ripped the pages out of his notebooks, and pushed his mattress off of its frame. Jeremy could still remember the fear in Alex's eyes once he had destroyed his room. After that Jeremy stopped trying to get Alex to see him and instead just watched Alex.
Their day had started off fairly normal, Jeremy sat in Alex's desk chair and watched him sluggishly get out of bed. When Alex began changing his clothes, Jeremy turned the chair around to face away from him, startling Alex in the process. Jeremy cringed at Alex's gasp and the bump of Alex's phone falling from his nightstand to the floor. This happened all the time and Jeremy scolded himself every time it did but he still managed to scare Alex.
Alex sighed and grumbled under his breath, pulling his pants the rest of the way up and walking out of his bedroom to the bathroom. Jeremy stood up from the chair and followed Alex as usual. Alex did his usual routine of combing his hair and brushing his teeth. Jeremy absentmindedly drew his name on the mirror. Alex's eyes widened at the sight of Jeremy's name and he quickly wiped the water off of the mirror and walked out of the bathroom.
Alex walked downstairs with Jeremy not far behind and grabbed a bowl of cereal. Alex's mom smiled at him while she set a bowl of Cheerios in front of Alex's baby sister.
"Alex sweetie, tomorrow can you hand out the candy? Your father and I are taking Ellie around the neighborhood," she asked the question in a way that clearly meant that Alex didn't have a choice.
Alex sighed, "Sure."
"She's only taking Ellie out to use her for candy," Jeremy spoke even though Alex couldn't hear him. He sat in front of Alex on the table. When Alex went to get another bite of cereal he shivered as his arm just went through Jeremy's knee.
Alex put the spoon down and went to grab his backpack.
"I'm going to school Mom!" Alex called out before walking out the door.
Jeremy looked back at the still half full bowl of cereal before floating after him. "You didn't finish your breakfast you know," Jeremy looked to Alex who he was now floating beside, "you should have though. You need to eat more."
"Shut up."
Jeremy stopped in his tracks, his eyes wide. He then ran after Alex, forgetting that he could float.
"You can hear me! Holy- is this even real! Can you really hear me? Why haven't you ever respond-"
"I said shut up!" Alex yelled in Jeremy's general direction, but it was clear that he was looking straight through him. "I'm tired of hearing you everywhere I go! I'm tired of you following me! It wasn't on purpose Jeremy, I'm sorry, ok? Just leave me alone!" Alex began running to his school with tears in his eyes, running straight through Jeremy in the process and leaving Jeremy stunned.
He stood still for a few seconds until a couple of what Jeremy recognized as Alex's classmates walked through him, whispering about how worried they were for Alex. Jeremy took a few more seconds of standing in the street before flying after Alex.
The first half of the day was fairly normal. Jeremy followed Alex around in the classrooms, sitting in empty seats and listening to the lessons. He didn't talk to Alex, though. Instead he was completely silent. He was confused, how did Alex know him? Well, besides writing his name on everything, of course.
When the bell rang for the end of fourth period the teacher walked up to Alex before he could leave. He handed Alex a note and said, "The principal wants to see you."
Alex sighed and grabbed the note before sauntering out of the room and down to the second floor with Jeremy not far behind.
The principal's office was fairly bare, except for the far wall with framed childrens pictures. Alex immediately recognized the pictures, having known some of the children himself. They were pictures of students who had died over the years, the principal put them up with their date of death on the bottom left corner of the photos. Alex refused to look at the newest addition to the wall, but Jeremy stared at it. The boy had curly red hair, freckles speckled all over his face and shoulders, and nose that looked way to big on his face. The boy looked familiar, but Jeremy couldn't place his finger on where he had seen the boy before.
Jeremy turned away from the photo and sat in the large chair Alex was sitting in, his knee phasing throw Alex's. He looked over to Alex and he was shocked by the cold, dead expression on his face.
The principal gulped. "Alex, do you know why you are here today?" Alex shook his head. "Well, so of your classmates were showing some concern about an uh, outbreak you had before school started today." The principal waited for a response from Alex and continued when he got none, "They said you were yelling at nothing. They said you had mentioned Jeremy-"
"You don't know jack about Jeremy!" Alex jumped to his feet and slammed his hands down on the principal's desk with such force and rage that a stapler and pencil sharpener fell off of the desk. "None of you even knew Jeremy! You're just using his death for publici-"
"Mr. Ronbach sit down!" the principal shouted. Jeremy brought his knees to his chest as Alex slowly sat back down. The principal cleared his throat and straightened his tie. "Now I know you and Jeremy were… Close."
Alex glared, "He was my boyfriend. Are you to homophobic to even acknowledge that not all of your beloved students are straight?" His words were full of venom that Jeremy had never heard before. Jeremy crawled over to Alex and sat through his lap, holding up his arms to hug Alex and trying not to let his phase through him.
The principal narrowed his eyes. "That was uncalled for." He sighed and paused for a moment. "Your teachers and I think it would be good for you to have a break from school. You are clearly to grief ridden to be able to study effectively. So, we have issued a temporary suspension, starting today, to get yourself together. Your assignments and homework will be emailed to you. Please get those done before the suspension ends so you will be caught up when you get back. I have already called your mother, so you should pack your things and get ready to leave."
Alex stared wide eyed at the principal. "I'm sorry," Jeremy whispered in his ear.
The car ride to Alex's house was silent and tense. Alex's mother didn't speak to him until they got inside.
"Sweetie, if you need to talk about anything tell me, ok?"
"Whatever Mom," Alex's voice was cold and hard.
He walked up stairs and into his room. He fell on his bed and curled up into a ball. Jeremy laid down on the bed next to him and watched as tears began forming in Alex's eyes.
"Jeremy," Alex croaked, "Jeremy I'm so sorry. It's, it's all my fault you died. J-Jeremy…"
Jeremy felt an overwhelming urge to comfort the crying boy, and he moved closer to him until their foreheads were almost touching. "Shhh, it's going to be ok, you're going to be ok."
"N-no I'm not! I'm so sorry I didn't do anything to help-"
"It's not your fault," Jeremy tried to wipe a tear off of Alex's cheek, but he could only move it a little bit further down his face. Jeremy didn't completely understand what Alex was talking about, but he knew that whatever happened couldn't have been Alex's fault.
For another hour Alex repeating 'I'm sorry' while Jeremy whispered to him and eventually Alex fell asleep. Jeremy closed his eyes and moved his head towards Alex's, but when his forehead phased through Alex's all he could see was white.
Jeremy blinked a few times and turned in a circle. He was standing in a seemingly never ending room of white with a little black speck in the distance. Jeremy hesitantly walked towards it before breaking into a sprint. The black spot slowly grew larger, and as Jeremy got closer to it he heard loud sobs that continued to get louder. Soon his surroundings turned gray and cracks started forming around him. The sobs were now so loud that Jeremy's ears were ringing.
"Alex! Alex where are you?" Jeremy could barely hear his own voice over the whimpers that he knew belonged to Alex.
"GO AWAY!!" the booming voice knocked Jeremy to the ground. It didn't hurt as much physically as it didn't mentally, Alex's voice echoed through his mind and he knew Alex was hurting and it made his heart hurt.
"Alex! Alex listen to me! I'm not going to hurt you! I don't really know what's going on but we can figure this out! Please just, please let me help you!" He got to his feet tears draping his cheeks.
Alex's sobs turned into whimpers and Jeremy could finally start to make out which direction they were coming from. He walked towards the sounds carefully to be sure he wouldn't stumbleupon Alex and scare him. Soon the noises stopped all together. Jeremy could only keep walking in the same direction.
After what felt like forever Jeremy stopped in front of a door attached to nothing. It was black near the bottom and it faded to a dark purple near the top and white dots peppered the scene. It seemed familiar to Jeremy. Water seeped out from the bottom of the door and got Jeremy's feet wet. He reached his hand out and knocked on the door.
"Alex? I'm coming in, is that ok?" Jeremy waited for a response and when he got none he opened the door. He was greeted with a soft warm glow. He stepped into the room and closed the door behind him, watching the floor that was covered in water. Fish were swimming around his feet, almost as if they were excited puppies welcoming their owner home.
He looked up for the first time to examine the room. The ceiling was slanted and covered in posters and hanging light bulbs. The walls of room had paintings of galaxies and maps for worlds that only existed in his dreams. The stars seemed to pulse in time with his shallow breaths. There was a desk tucked neatly into the corner of the room and on it were pictures of Alex and the red haired boy from the principal's office. There was a laptop left open on the desk with what seemed to be an album cover on the screen with a big play button on the screen. Even though the track was paused the memory of light acoustic guitars and drums wrapped around his body. In the middle of the back wall was a window that was covered by a Celtic tapestry that blew gently in the nonexistent wind. Under the window was a bed covered with a comforter and pillows that had blue, black, and purple galaxies. Curled up on the bed was Alex's shaking form with a trail of water leading from his face over the bed and to the floor.
Jeremy walked towards Alex, his feet gliding through the water as if it wasn't even there. He gently placed his hand on Alex's shoulder and after a small flinch, Alex melted into his touch.
"Alex?"
"What?"
Jeremy hesitated and looked back at the picture on the desk. "This is my room, isn't it?"
Alex choked out a laugh, "Yeah, it is." He turned over to look at Jeremy. "It's your room but I felt way more at home here than I ever did with Mom."
Jeremy sat down on the bed next to Alex's head and, like he had done many times before, Alex laid his head on Jeremy's lap, looking at the picture on the walls. Jeremy ran his fingers through Alex's hair and Alex sighed happily with tears threatening to sting his cheeks again.
"You used to sneak me out of my room at night and take me here. We would talk for hours like this about anything and everything. And when you started talking about space your eye lit up and the way you spoke made it feel like we were the only two people left in the world." Alex started crying into Jeremy's knees. "You were always so beautiful. Everything about you; your laugh, your smile, your voice, your personality, your art. You always made me feel so loved, to the point that my heart ached when you weren't around. I was, am, so madly in love with you."
Jeremy climbed the rest of the way onto the bed and leaned against the wall at the edge of the bed. He pulled the crying Alex over to him and rested his head on his lap like before.
"In the spring you would take me out to the lake and you would play in the water and chase fish around like a dork," Alex was laughing now, too. "And we would camp out on the dock and when the sunset you would point out constellations to me until I fell asleep. In the summer you and I would paint the garage. We covered the walls and the garage door and each other in a jumbled mess of colors, and when I judged my work badly you'd mess up what ever you were working on and tell me that art is art. Then you would proceed to wipe your paint hands on me."
Jeremy smiled down at Alex and absentmindedly traced his shoulders with the lightest of touches. "And in the fall we would make leaf piles in the roads and watch the cars run into them. We would ride our bikes around the streets and on halloween we would through splat balls at houses."
There was a long soothing silence between the two of them as the music played softly.
Jeremy gulped and looked up the ceiling. "Hey Alex, why did you keep saying it's your fault I died?"
Alex was quiet for a moment. "It… it was a week before winter break and some other guys on the football team found out that we were dating. They weren't exactly the nicest to homosexual students so they started targeting you and making fun of you, but you were so sweet that you thought they were just joking around. One night you told me that you were hanging out at the dock with the team. I knew they were going to do something to you, so I went to the lake as fast as I could. They had you cornered neared the end of the dock but you didn't think anything bad was happening. I tried to get you out of there but you were confused and wanted to stay. The team repeated what you said and shoved me back, and that was when you told them that they should stop. They started pushing you back to the edge of the dock and I tried to save you but… They pushed me to the ground and you into the lake. You broke the ice and fell into the water but you couldn't climb out and you froze, then drowned."
Alex's eyes glazed over and he stared up at Jeremy. Jeremy's eyes were wide with tears. "It was my fault I'm dead. Babe it wasn't you, it was me! If I wasn't so stupid-!" Its was Jeremy's turn to cry now, he could remember all of it. He could remember Alex's sweet kisses and painting him into a masterpiece. He remembered his dreams of being an astrologist. He remember how they would cry after any fight. How happy Alex looked when confused neighbors found that what hit their windows was a ball that looked like an egg. How the ice knocked the wind out of him. The screams of his beloved as his head went under the water one last time. How his lungs froze when all he wanted was to breath.
He started to curl up and Alex sat up to guide him down to the bed. Jeremy buried his face into Alex's chest as Alex rubbed his back. They mumbled to each other for the rest of the night like 'I miss you so much' and 'I wish I could outside of here' until Alex woke up.
Alex Ronbach was an average boy. He had a boyfriend for seven years, five of those in which his boyfriend was dead, until one day in college he found a boy that had a lot of the same interests. As Alex got closer to the boy, his boyfriend got more distant. Though the break up wasn't official, Alex's boyfriend stopped speaking to him for the next 17 years.
Alex did not enter a relationship in all that time, waiting for the ghost boys return. He even pursued a career in art to paint pictures to bring the ghost back. He would talk to himself in hopes the ghost was listening.
One day there was an accident, and when Alex woke up, the ghost boy was there. They could finally kiss each other like they had wanted to for the past 22 years.
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