บท 355: Ghost [#2]
"Wait, you can see me now?"
"What the fuck are you!?"
Let's rewind!
Clint had been in the hospital for about three days since he wanted to leave, and they couldn't keep him there (It's the 1980's, if mental health is bad in the 2020's, imagine at the 80's...) so they gave him a phone number to call in case he wanted to take his life again, and they let him go. Later that same day, he started drinking again because he couldn't stop the grief that came to his mind.
It was his fault that they died - fuck logic, he doesn't give a fuck about whatever anyone says about this, it's his fault and his fault alone. He had given them that ticket, and they went to that cruise that was attacked by those terrorists. Illogical? Yes. He didn't have control over the events that transpired, but his mind still kept telling him it was all his fault, and he felt guilty each and every time. 'What if I hadn't given her that ticket? What if I had gone with her? What if -' He couldn't stop himself from thinking about the what ifs and likewise possible scenarios, and that spiraled down further into madness.
He kept seeing Laura and Lila, they both blamed him for their deaths, and that just fucked him up more.
"I'm so sorry, Laura..." Drunk out of his mind, or so he was trying to convince himself, seeing as you can't get drunk on cheap beer - even more so when you've drunk only 3 of them. "What do I do with my life now..?" He just wanted an answer, from wherever, whoever, whatever! As he closed his eyes and felt hopeless once again today, he heard a voice speak from above him: "You could start by taking a shower. That would be a great start." He stopped thinking for a second, his automatic response came out before he could even think about it: "... God?"
"Hah! I wish..." The voice answered as Clint raised his head to look up. He saw this weirdly transparent guy, just floating there, nonchalantly. "...Who are you?" The guy stopped for a moment before he froze, looking down at him in great surprise: "Wait, you can see me now?" This ghost (what the fuck?) lowered himself till he was face to face to Clint. His eyes were grey, and his grin was wide as he looked over at him excitedly: "What the fuck are you!?" Clint pushed himself away from the thing that was above him, falling from the sofa and scrambling away quickly from him like a crab. The panic that passed by the guy's eyes increased, his eyes widened before he quickly said: "Hey, watch out!" And an invisible force suddenly pulled him away to the side just as something behind him fell with a heavy thud followed by the sound of shattering glass. Slowly, Clint looked behind himself to see that the really old cabinet full of empty alcohol bottles in the ground had fallen forward.
He was one foot away from where it had fallen. If he had been closer, he would've been hurt badly.
"Goddamn! This is the second time I've saved your life. You better think of a way to compensate me, big boy." The ghost had this soft smile on his lips as he held out his hand towards him, which Clint eyed both curiously and wearily. "Okay, I can see your worldview shattering right now, but I must say, you're really cute when you look surprised like that." Did a ghost just flirt with him? "Uhm, thanks?" Confused and slightly flattered, he took the hand offered him and was surprised when he actually felt the hold - sure, it was a cold hand, but it was a solid hand. "You're very welcome." Getting up, he dusted himself and looked over back again at the cabinet that had fallen, only then did everything snapped into place: "So you're... a ghost?"
"Yup." The guy stood there, or rather, floated there without a care. "Kinda cool, not gonna lie." Clint just nodded mindlessly before pointing between him and the fallen cabinet: "You did that?" The ghost just shook his head and floated a little closer to the cabinet before pointing behind it: "Nah, the old wooden leg of this thing broke. It was kinda hollow, I think? It couldn't support the weight anymore, so it shattered. Poof, just like that." Before his own eyes, the cabinet slowly floated out of the ground, first only a few inches before the entire thing was floating: "Don't worry, I'll take care of this for you. In the meantime, you can go take a bath, like I suggested."
"Yep." Clint clapped his hands, a cheeful smile on his lips: "I'm dreaming." This explains everything! There's no way something as ridiculous as a ghost could be possibly real! 'Yep. I'm definitely dreaming.' He sighed softly to himself, sat back down on the sofa, and pondered... How does he wake up? He started by first slapping his own face, which hurt, but nothing besides that happened. "Ouch..." Clint felt the pain. Do you feel pain in dreams? He didn't know if you could feel pain while dreaming, so he just decided to try again to wake up, this time by going back to sleep. He laid down on the sofa, closed his eyes, and soon fell asleep.
Later, he woke up. So fucking groggy that he didn't know where he was, who he was, and when he was for a few moments before consciousness came back to him. A minor headache plagued his skull, and he reached out for a beer, but all he got was a bottle of water. "What?" He whispered - he didn't go to sleep with a blanket over him. The fuck? "Oh, you're awake now... Hungry?" He heard this voice before... Slowly, he turned his head towards the direction that voice came from to see a guy sitting on a chair, setting the table. "...who are you?"
Oh fuck, did a burglar got inside his house?
"Me?" Wait, he's semi translucent. "My name's... huh, I don't remember it." The ghost slowly started to float above the table, his form going upside down as if to stimulate his thoughts to form: "Was it with N? No, it must've been something with G in it, or maybe F?" He stopped only when he was close enough that Clint could see the scars in the guy's face. "Hey, what's your name?"
"Oh fuck, it wasn't a dream." What does this mean? If he is real, then ghosts are real. If he can see the guy, he can see ghosts. If he can see ghosts... "Laura?" Getting up, Clint started to go around the house looking for them: "Lila? Please, God, please -" They weren't here. They weren't here!? 'What does this mean!?' He was frantically looking everywhere, and yet he didn't find them. "Dude, chill out... They aren't here. They're in heaven." Clint immediately stopped, turned towards the ghost who he started seeing, and asked - voice rougher and broken from him wanting to cry a little more: "What? What did you say?"
"Well, there's this concept of heaven, which is basically this realm of positive energy where souls of humans go to. Heaven's like a box where people go to experience the best things since they can put you in intricate illusions that can grant you an entire lifetime of good things happening all the time to you." The ghost guy patted Clint's shoulder, making him shiver at the contact: "Then Hell's the opposite, where you get into torture for a while before being sent back to the cycle so you can reincarnate and shit." Shrugging as if he hadn't just revealed the greatest secret of the universe, the undead grinned: "Best yet, each afterlife in each religion is true because you go to where you believe in! Heaven? Valhalla? Elysium? You go there, and you stay there until all your good karma is consumed like fuel, and you run out of it. At which point you're kicked out of your afterlife into the blender to be erased of your past life's memories and experiences, being reincarnated. That's essentially the entirety of the afterlife..."
"...what?"
"Yeah, crazy right? Anyway, your sister and niece are in their Heaven right now, having the time of their life." This is actually truth. As a ghost that gas absorbed part of the system, our protagonist knows things he shouldn't know. "Anyway, you hungry? I made this, since I'm trying to be a nice leech and feed you while you feed me, you know? Be a symbiote, not a parasite." As he was speaking, his words echoing inside Clint's head as the utensils started to just put food in a plate by themselves. "Okay, this is going too fast." Clint placed both hands to his face as his worldview shattered before his own eyes - If heaven and hell are real, is God? Clint wasn't a religious man. After all, growing up with religious nuts and learning how he'd burn in hell for liking men (Something he had no control over) was one hell of a fuck no.
Pun intended.
"Wait, wait, wait, wait - is God real!?" Clint really needed the answer to this, because if he's real, fuck!
"Which one?" The ghost asked casually, his hands phasing through Clint's chest, making him feel weirdly cold in his chest so he pulled back until the hand of the ghost man guy had fully left his chest: "Oh, sorry - you just had something in your shirt." And indeed, Clint had something on his shirt, so he patted his chest until it fell. It was just a single hair of his. "Anyway, which one again? Because pretty much every single one you can believe in... So God with the big G? Real. Odin? Real. Zeus? Sadly, real, too." Ghost dude turned around and floated towards the table, where Clint followed too, since the food looked good and he was hungry as fuck. "They've signed a contract, making sure they don't mess around with humanity, which is why you don't see the Gods walking around here... I think there's also the Sorcerers. They keep the esoteric slash metaphysical threats in check, too! Demons, Fallen Angels, and undead, too." So magic's real too! Why not!? He might as well accept that everything can exist.
"...so, what is this all about? You said, 'You can see me now'? You've been here...?"
"I mean, just recently." He said: "It's just that your body has finally adapted to me, and now you can see me!"
"What do you mean by that...?"
"Oh, to save your life after you tried to commit die, I possessed your unconscious body and reached out to the mind, making a contract with your soul." To demonstrate what he was talking about, he tugged something in front of his chest, that was when a thin but very bright string that connected their chests appeared: "I didn't want you to die, so I made a contract that would help... I share some of my power with you, and you feed me. That's the contract, which is why you survived! I kept your heart beating and your blood coagulation up with my power, and you survived... I followed you to the hospital and now to here too! I basically can not get too far from you. It's impossible for me to do so."
"So you're saying..."
"Congratulations, you married a ghost!" With a flick of his hand, a paper towel moved and began cleaning Clint's lap, where a piece of bacon had fallen into as he just stared at his new ghost husband with his mouth agape. "So, can you please give me a name? I'm tired of being referred to as ghost guy or ghost man."
I'll ignore that.
"Okay." Just accepting his situation for now, Clint blinked - a name, a good name for his new ghost friend ("And they were roommates") that goes well with him. "Azur, Azur Bones."
"I like it." The newly named Azur Bones grinned, asking: "And your name, dear husband?"
"Clint." He ignored the last part, still coming to terms with the fact that ghosts, gods, and gayness is real even in the afterlife. "Clint Francis Barton."
"Well... Azur Bones Barton doesn't sound that bad."
Clint couldn't help the little part of him that agreed to that.
-Scene Cut-
Happy Pride month~
Go be extra gay today.
I am.
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