Chapter Text
Sebastian had seen him during his first tour of the apartment. Lurking in the corner of the living room, frowning as the landlord showed him around. The landlord didn’t acknowledge his presence, so Sebastian ignored him too. He was adept at watching the things others couldn’t see out of the corner of his eye, examining them without alerting anyone else to their existence.
And the boy himself didn’t seem to notice he was being watched either, his shoulders slumped as he downright pouted while he followed Sebastian and the landlord into the bedroom. He clearly wasn’t happy about Sebastian’s presence in his space, and Sebastian knew he could cause more trouble than the apartment was worth.
But then he opened the curtains and took in the view of the Manhattan skyline and he knew it didn’t matter if the apartment was haunted. Ghost be damned, he wanted this place.
The boy (though really the longer Sebastian lived there, the more he realized he was definitely a man, maybe only a few years younger than Sebastian) didn’t cause well, really any problems. He mostly just lurked like he had the first day.
Sebastian had expected the slamming of doors and broken vases and his glasses disappearing from his bedside table in the middle of the night. But instead, the only non-visual signs of a haunting were the perpetual chill that lingered wherever the boy was sitting, and that sometimes his Alexa would start playing music on its own. Usually showtunes, sometimes top forty hits from the 2010s. It was like living with an angsty theater kid.
Sebastian had taken up studying the ghost as a hobby, especially when he was struck by writer’s block. He’d always had a habit of staring off into the distance as he sorted through the words in his head and attempted to order them in a reasonable manner. But now, he stared at the boy. At first, the boy had startled when he’d noticed, eye wide with surprise, but Sebastian was really good at pretending to be zoned out, and eventually the boy must have determined that Sebastian was just staring at the wall behind him.
He was pretty, really. Too pretty to look as sad as he did all the time. Dark curls and a perpetual five-o’clock shadow. And when he sat in front of the picture window and the sun glinted off his eyes just right? It was honestly a little breathtaking, the green of his hazel eyes being replaced with pure honey gold.
He liked it when Sebastian had the curtains open, spent most of his time sitting by the window watching the city life below it. It was the only time Sebastian could really see any translucency to him, like in the sunlight, he began to fade away. The rest of the time he seemed almost alive he was so solid, so firmly grounded on this plane of existence.
But despite that, he seemed unable, or unwilling, to touch anything. On days when Sebastian was in a hurry and forgot to open the curtains for him, he’d return home to the boy sitting solemnly in the corner, his knees pulled tight to his chest. But the second the curtains were back open he’d scurry over to his place on the wide windowsill.
They existed in this peace for nearly two months, his silent roommate ever present and ever frowning and ever quiet. He was, by far, the most respectful spectral companion Sebastian had ever had.
Until Sebastian came home late from a night of drinking, and he looked concerned and annoyed, like he’d been up waiting for him. But then Sebastian’s late-night escapade followed him in and he looked downright livid.
The lights flickered ominously, the temperature in the apartment plummeted, and Alexa started playing the opening to fucking Sweeney Todd. Sebastian didn’t exactly blame his date for making a speedy exit, but he was far too flabbergasted to understand what was happening himself to stop him.
The activity stopped once he’d left, and the boy stood in the middle of the room with his arms crossed over his chest, glaring at the, now closed, front door.
“What the fuck?” Sebastian hissed, glancing up to find the hanging lights still swinging gently. The boy simply huffed and returned to his place at the window. Sebastian closed the curtains with a harsh tug and felt slightly vindicated when the boy fell off the sill, startled.
The second time Sebastian brought a boy home, they made it all the way to the bedroom before he heard a loud crash from the kitchen and had to pull himself away from the tangle of limbs to investigate. All of his cabinets were open and the contents had been dumped on the floor. Bowls, plates, cups, food, all of it. The boy was standing in the middle of it, looking shaky and breathing heavily.
“Out,” he barked, and it was the first time Sebastian had ever heard him speak. His eyes flickered with rage, and when all the lights went out, Sebastian’s date, once again, ran for the hills.
Sebastian closed the door behind him and leaned against it heavily for a moment before he steeled himself and moved swiftly to his room. Rifling through the few unpacked boxes in his closet, he retrieved a small but ornate box and a rosary. He stalked back to the kitchen and walked right up to the boy still standing among the wreckage, his shoes crunching on broken glass.
“Do you know what this is?” Sebastian asked, presenting the box. The boy startled back a few steps when Sebastian locked eyes with him. The lights flickered with the boy’s unsteady breathing.
“I-I–”
“It’s a sealing box, currently empty, purchased the day I signed the lease to this place.”
The boy’s eyes were wide and terrified. He backed up a few more paces, but Sebastian followed until he was backed into the cabinet behind him, his back bent at an awkward angle as he tried to lean further away from Sebastian, but all that did was give Sebastian more height to tower over the cowering ghost.
“It’s a lot of work to exorcise a spirit, work I wasn’t particularly keen on doing when you seemed harmless, but now?”
“I’m-I’m sorry,” the boy said, his voice nearly a whimper.
“Do I have to use it? Or can you keep your blatant homophobia in check?”
“I'm not… that’s not–”
Sebastian raised an eyebrow at him, but he wouldn’t meet Sebastian’s expectant stare.
“It won’t happen again,” he said softly.
“Good,” Sebastian said sharply.
He opened the box and dropped the rosary back inside before setting it on the counter. The boy flinched but didn’t do more than straighten up when Sebastian moved away from him. He collected the broom from behind the fridge and held it out to the boy. The boy stared blankly at it for a moment before flicking his gaze up to meet Sebastian’s.
“If you’re corporeal enough to make this mess, you're corporeal enough to clean it up.”
The boy took a deep breath before slowly extending his hand, his brow furrowed in concentration. His hand passed through it on the first attempt. He grit his teeth and tried again, but still his hand moved through the wooden handle.
“I’m not… good at this,” he hissed, his jaw tight with frustration.
“You blew every dish out of my cupboards, but you can’t hold a broom?” Sebastian asked incredulously.
“It wasn’t on purpose!” the boy snapped at him, then recoiled as the lights flickered with his outburst.
Sebastian sighed. “I need a fucking drink.”
The boy made the wise decision to stay out of Sebastian’s way until after he got the kitchen fully cleaned up. Doing so took almost a full week, between sweeping up all the broken glass, salvaging the few unbroken dishes, hiring a cleaner to do a more detailed clean for any glass he’d missed, and buying new dishes to replace the destroyed ones.
Sebastian was cooking for the first time since the disaster when the boy spoke again.
“How can you see me?” He was hovering in the doorway, as far as he could get from Sebastian by the stove while still being in his line of sight.
Sebastian glanced back at him while stirring his pasta sauce. “Beats me,” he said with a shrug. “I just can.”
“But you’ve seen other ghosts?” the boy pressed, taking a hesitant step into the kitchen.
Sebastian nodded. “Yeah, since I was a kid.”
“That must have been scary.”
Sebastian laughed softly. “Not usually. And I did have Sixth Sense and my abuela to walk me through the initial confusion.”
The boy frowned. “Abuela?”
The corner of Sebastian’s mouth lifted in an involuntary smirk. “Yeah, you know, Spanish for grandmother. Or do I not look like I’d have an abuela?”
The boy hesitated. “I mean… I just didn’t expect it.”
Sebastian’s grin faltered slightly, but he plastered it back on. “Well, you are sort of correct. Because I do not have an abuela, not anymore.”
“Oh,” the boy had stopped his hovering and was fully in the kitchen now, standing just across the island from Sebastian. “I’m sorry.”
“Oh, don’t worry,” Sebastian said with a wave of his hand, “she’s not dead.”
The boy’s brow furrowed.
“But she did disown me when I ‘turned her granddaughter gay’.” Sebastian’s finger quotes were small but sharp. “Code for: was the first one out, and the one not related to her by blood. So, clearly, the root of the homosexual curse descending on the Lopez family.”
The boy was silent for a moment too long.
Sebastian inclined his head to the side. “No ominous flickering or flying objects to accompany that story?”
“I… I wasn’t trying to chase them out because they were boys,” he said cautiously. “I was trying to chase them out because… from behind you look like my fiancé.” Sebastian’s hand paused in its stirring. “And when I can’t see your face… I like to pretend you’re him. But that’s not great when you’re making out with someone else.”
Sebastian turned off the burner and moved his pot to the back of the stove. He turned to give the boy his whole attention. “Is he here with you?”
“No,” the boy shook his head quickly, “he’s alive. I think. He was when he moved out, at least.”
“Why didn’t you go with him?” Sebastian folded his arms across his chest, tilting his head.
The boy shrugged noncommittally. “He wanted to move on. I… didn’t want to watch him move on. So I stayed here. He didn’t need me lingering over his shoulder. I was clingy enough when I was alive.” He winced.
“Is he your unfinished business?”
The boy cocked his head to the side. “Is that actually a thing?”
“Sometimes,” Sebastian said, turning back to the stove. “I mean, maybe. I’ve never actually seen it, but you’re the most solid ghost I’ve ever come across.”
“Solid?”
“Yeah. Verbal, coherent, aware of your surroundings, and the fact that you’re dead. I haven’t met anyone who checked all those boxes since…” Sebastian trailed off.
“Since?” His voice was closer; Sebastian could tell he’d come around the island, or perhaps walked through it, only a few feet separating them now.
Sebastian shook his head. “Since I was a kid. If you have unfinished business, you seem in great shape to, y’know, finish it.”
“Are you offering to help?”
The words were a chill on the back of Sebastian’s neck. He wasn’t sure if the boy realized how close he’d gotten, close enough to send goosebumps up his arms. Sebastian took a quick step to the side, pacing away from the boy. His heartbeat was quick in his chest, the boy looked startled by the movement.
Sebastian didn’t let the uneasiness show on his face, passing off the movement as he reached into a cupboard to grab the colander. “If you find out what it is,” he said, his voice steady and casual, “then I’ll do what I can.”
The boy was watching him with a creased brow. If he sensed the mood shift he chose to ignore it, nodding slowly. “Okay… thank you.”
And then he left, leaving Sebastian alone to dish up his food and eat in silence.