(Archived) Poth Short Stories and One-Shots

Haunted Memories - Chapter 3

Chapter Warnings: Swearing

***

All too soon, the bedroom door opened with the skeleton interloper carrying a large stack of clothing in their arms. Rurik held a sneaking suspicion of what was happening, but asked anyway, "And what do you think you're doing?"

"I live here, so I'm putting my clothes away in my room, duh," Lotus said, setting the stack of clothes on the bed and moving to open one of the old dresser drawers.

"You mean my room," Rurik growled, "And I died here, you know; right there on that bed."

Lotus stared at the bed for a moment. "I've slept in worse places," they shrugged, taking Rurik's clothes out of the drawer and placing their clothes in with little concern toward the information. The lack of reaction earned a sour look from the ghost, though he was saved from thinking up a clever reply when the monster stated, "You were in the military?"

He quirked his socket at the sudden topic change, "What?"

"There's a set of dog tags on the dresser," Lotus explained, picking up the item and running a thumb over the film of dust to reveal his name, "I suppose that explains the surly attitude..." With a glance around the room, the skeleton noted, "You actually have a lot of personal items in here still; I'm kind of surprised you never thought to possess any of the smaller objects to get out of here... then again, you wouldn't be able to travel far from your origin point and you'd lose the item if you snap back."

"Possess?" Rurik sat up a little straighter, "I can do more than move stuff around?"

"Ah, you never got past the basics of object manipulation then," the smaller surmised with a small nod of their skull, returning to their task.

Rurik glowered, irritated with the sudden know-it-all attitude... but he was also mildly interested in knowing more about his supposed abilities; with that in mind, he subtly jabbed, "How does it work then if you're so smart?"

The smaller chided him with a knowing look, "Nice try, but I'm not giving you more power until I know you're not going to cause problems with it."

Rurik growled in frustration, "Then hands off my stuff!" Swiping the tags out of the reaper's hand, he deposited them back onto the dresser and snapped, "Didn't anyone ever teach you that it's rude to touch other people's things?"

"Says the guy who threw the contents of my suitcase all over the living room," Lotus retorted, shutting one drawer and opening another. Staring at the personal effects littering the dresser's surface for a long moment, the skeleton's eye light lingered on the sheathed hunting knife before they spoke, "Tell you what; you can have half the dresser for your stuff, I'll have the other half, and we agree to not mess with each other's side without permission."

"And why should I agree?" Rurik huffed.

"Because the alternative is I reap you, then throw out your stuff and have the dresser all to myself," Lotus replied, his hands moving rest on his hips as he huffed, "Look, I'm doing you a favor by trying to find a middle ground since you're stuck here; the least you could do is not be a total dick about it."

As much as Rurik wanted to deny it, Lotus had a point. The reaper held all the cards here and he really didn't have any room to negotiate; his best option was to accept whatever concessions they were willing to make. Once again, he grudgingly accepted the conditions, "Fine, but I won't thank you for it."

"I wasn't expecting it," Lotus sighed, "I'll need to move your stuff first to dust off the dresser, but I can-" the skeleton was cut off by a ringing sound coming from their pocket; pulling out the device, they wore an unreadable expression as they stared at the screen playing a tune to an unidentified number.

"Are you going to answer it or just listen to it?" Rurik snarked when more than a handful of seconds passed without action.

The smaller frowned at the jab, clenching the phone in their hand. Taking a deep breath, they hesitantly slide their thumb to answer the call and held the phone up, "... Hello?" Rurik could hear a muffled voice on the other line, but couldn't make out any of the words. "This is he...," the skeleton spoke cautiously, their expression tightening before it brightened and they nodded their skull enthusiastically, "Yeah, I'm still interested... yeah, I can come in tomorrow... eight AM... right, I'll see you bright and early tomorrow... thank you. Bye."

Ending the call, Lotus let out a small whoop of joy, then fell back onto the bed with little care for the dust it kicked up while holding their phone to their chest with a smile on their face. Rurik hovered closer in curiosity, "What was that all about?"

"I have a job interview tomorrow," the skeleton proudly announced with a wide grin, letting his skull fall back on the bed, "I honestly wasn't expecting to get a callback so quickly. Maybe my luck's finally changing for the better."

Rurik averted his gaze, feeling like he would be blushing at the giddy display if he still had marrow. To cover up the lapse, he scoffed, "Good, so that means I won't have to deal with you tomorrow."

"And I should start getting this place cleaned up tonight since I might not have time tomorrow," Lotus ignored the quip, rolling back onto his feet smoothly and slipping the phone into his pocket while jogging to the door.

The ghost followed them, passing right through the door that was shut in his face as he yelled, "You better not rearrange any of my furniture; I already have everything the way I want it!"

Lotus waved the warning off, digging through the cabinet under the sink for a bottle of cleaner and a towel that Rurik knew wasn't there before, "Relax, I'm only going to dust the furniture, clean the floors and windows, and maybe wash the bed sheets if I have time; it'll make this place look less like a haunted house."

"Technically, it's a haunted apartment," Rurik quipped, finding it difficult to stay grumpy in the face of Lotus's enthusiasm.

"Semantics," The monster shrugged, lifting their scarf to cover their mouth and nasal ridge and rising off the ground to start dusting the overhead light fixture, "Trust me, this place will look much better after I'm done with it."

"You did that floaty thing earlier too; how are you doing that? You're not dead too, are you?" Rurik questioned the hovering skeleton.

"No," Lotus snorted, tilting their skull to check all around the frosted globe for any missed cobwebs, "It's part of the magic I inherited from my sorry excuse of a dad; it's also why I can see and hear you, though I have to manually channel magic to my eye light to actually see you."

Now that he was paying attention, Lotus' eye light had gone back to its duller red color... which meant the reaper was currently limited to their hearing.

"Huh... is your dad the one you're running from?" The ghost probed.

Lotus stiffened, floating back to the ground with an odd look on their face as they absently clenched the towel in their fist, "No, he never gave two shits about me... and I'd prefer not to talk about it anymore; it's kind of personal."

Rurik debated pushing the subject as his new roommate broke off to go clean the cobwebs clinging to the walls, but something about it felt wrong; kind of weird considering he never really had any compulsion to give a damn before. Then again, maybe it had something to do with Lotus's ability to get rid of him if he caused too much trouble. Ultimately, he shrugged his shoulders and decided to let the matter drop, "Suit yourself."

Nothing said he had to drive Lotus out right away. Rurik could afford to play nice for now and wait for an opening; he had all the time in the world, after all.

***

Word Count: 1,363