Ghosts Shouldn't Be This Annoying

Libraries Smell Good

5. Libraries Smell Good

Your name is Sollux, and you are so fucking confused. So there are ghosts in your house apparently. Hot ghosts, but they're assholes and ghosts so you wouldn't go anywhere near that with your dick. Nonetheless, you DO want to know how the Amporas died, so here you and Mituna are at the library, wandering aimlessly.

Neither of you know where the fuck to look, but you're sure one of you will figure it out. It wouldn't be in the fiction section, no… the non-fiction section? Probably not… you promptly face-palm, earning more than a few weird looks, as you realize there's a town records section. That might be it.

You motion to Mituna and you both walk over, and it's just a bunch of papers in over-filled books, and papers strewn all over the floor. It's messy, even for a library. You'd think they'd have someone to clean this up.

Now you just have to work on your next problem, which is trying to find the book that contains death records of the Amporas, or just important people.

You step over all the papers, mildly angry at them being on the floor. It's such a small town, you don't know why the fuck they're all over the floor. Is the whole town going through these records? Jesus.

"Hey Tuna, can you go through these paperth?" you ask, and he nods, sitting down and starting to sift through the papers.

Then you spy a computer and silently pump your fist in the air because fuck yeah they've got a computer and sit down in the chair, thinking about what to search. Maybe "Amporas"? You bite your lip as you type the name in the library search engine, then click "Search".

Aaaand nothing comes up.

What a load of bullshit.

You grumble and try "Ampora Mansion", the name of the house you live in now, and still nothing. You turn to Mituna and ask, "Hey Tuna, have you found anything yet?"

"Nope," he replies sullenly, and you sigh. Back to the computer you go.

You two have spent hours in the library, you on the computer and Tuna going through books and papers.

How much have you two found on the Amporas?

Fucking nothing.

It has been hours, and neither of you have found anything on the Amporas. You've tried searching every variation of "Ampora" possible, you tried "mansion", you even tried their individual nicknames, but nothing's come up.

How is this even possible? Did you just imagine the whole thing? … No, that's not possible, Tuna saw it too. But if they did live in this town, then why can't you find anything on them or their deaths? It just doesn't make any sense.

You decide to go with plan whatever it is: the librarian.

You don't normally talk to the librarian- or for that matter, anyone. You're an antisocial little shit who prefers talking to people via electronics more than face to face, so obviously talking to anybody you don't know would be pretty hard. But you're doing this for Eridan. The Amporas, you mean. Yeah.

You steel your nerves and slowly walk up to the librarian's desk. The librarian is young, maybe a little older than you with shoulder-length black hair and a pretty blue dress. "Can I help you?" she asks sweetly, smiling.

She's kinda cute, wow. You find yourself stumbling over your words, "Um, I wath, uh, looking for thome information on, uh… the old houthe that I live in… now. Yeah."

She smiles, trying very hard not to laugh as she puts her head on her hands and fuck it's because of your lisp isn't it- "Oh my goodness, you're so cute. Tell me, where do you live?"

Thank fuck it's not your lisp. "Uh, the old Ampora houthe," you manage to stammer out.

The effect is immediate. She draws back, growing pale. "Don't mention that name," she whispers, looking around as if to see people coming around the corner with guns and handcuffs.

You raise an eyebrow and ask, "Why not?"

"Don't ask," she replies hurriedly and wow that's definitely going to convince you to not ask, wow. "There was an incident a while ago, ok? Nobody talks about it. So don't ask anybody or you could get yourself in some real trouble."

You raise your other eyebrow then, but shrug and reply, "Fine," before walking back to the section with the town history. "Come on Tuna, it'th time to go," you say, poking him with your shoe.

"Fine then, athhole," he swats at your foot, but gets up anyway and follows you out of the library, and you nod at the librarian as you go by. She solemnly nods back.

"Get your ghothty ath out here, ED," you say as soon as you walk into your room, dumping your phone and wallet on your bed.

Nothing responds.

You sigh and say, "I know you're creeping around, jutht appear already. I need to talk to you."

He suddenly appears next to you, arms crossed and ever-present scowl on his face. "Wwhat the fuck do you wwant?"

You scowl right back and snap, "Well fine, I wath going to tell you that I did hourth of fucking rethearch for you in the library and even talked to a thtranger but fine, if you don't want that information, fucking fine."

"You don't havve to be so fuckin' dramatic about it, Jesus, Sol," Eridan snaps right back at you and you are so fucking done with him.

"Hourth. Of. Fucking. Rethearch," you repeat, glaring at him.

"Fuckin' research? An' just for me? Howw cute," he smirks, and you want to smack that smirk right off his face.

"That ithn't what I meant, athhole. Look, I found nothing in the computer recordth and Tuna found nothing in the archiveth, but that'th not the weird part. When I went to athk the librarian, I told her I wanted to know about the Ampora houthe and she completely froze up. Told me not to talk about it, don't mention it to anybody, all that creepy shit. Tho I figure you died in some creepy ath shit way," you finish up, poker-faced as you stare at him.

He'd been looking progressively more done with your shit with each word you said, and he just looks so done right now. "Look, I appreciate all this fuckin' wwork, but you didn't need to do that. Wwe'vve all come to terms wwith our deaths, so you really didn't need to do all this wwork."

You sigh loudly, then repeat, "I already fucking thaid that I want to know how you died. I am not doing thith for you, or for anybody elthe. Maybe I'm doing it a tiny bit so you guyth can move on with your ghothtly life, ok? But I'm mainly doing thith so I can live a happy, ghotht-free life. Got it?"

He looks hurt, and yeah you did say some hurtful things. Before you can fix your mistakes, he promptly disappears, and you sigh and face-palm. "Fucking DAMMIT, ED," you growl. Now you have to figure out this shit on your own, and apparently secretly. You can't let this get out, according to the librarian.

Little did you know, but in the exact same town a man sits in front of a computer, scowling and grumbling. Some kid is researching the Ampora house? Great, another one to get rid of. He stands up and grabs his coat, grumbling some more as he exits the room.