Chapter Text
Gem is nervous.
She sits in her car in the Hermitcraft parking lot, clutching her satchel with both hands where it rests in her lap. She digs her fingers into it hard enough to indent the leather in an attempt to steady her shaking hands. It doesn’t work, and it doesn’t help, but she pretends it does.
When Xisuma approached her the day after Impulse Esvee, the most respected ghost hunter at Hermitcraft, sent her an email, Gem couldn’t help but think that it was a joke. After all, no one has ever wanted her on their team. They’ve always pasted fake smiles on their faces and told her that unfortunately, she didn’t make the cut. And it’s fine, even though this was Gem’s dream since the start. She’d come to terms with the fact that she’d always be the paperwork girl, and never the ghost hunter, not unless someone wanted some help on an investigation. She could help in other ways. It’s fine.
But then Xisuma asked her if she’d be willing to join the team. Officially, not just helping out every once in a while. The GIGS team, famous in the ghost hunting realm for their efficiency and their team bond. And Impulse had seemed so polite over the email, if not a bit tense and nervous. Who was she to decline such an incredible offer?
Gem isn’t sure if she’s ready for this, but she sighs and exits her car. She slings her satchel over her shoulder, instinctively slipping her hand into it to make sure that everything she needs—her car keys, a field journal, a fully stocked first aid kit, water, plus some other random items—is in there. As soon as she’s sure, she turns towards where a group of four people are standing outside of a van.
As she approaches, she doesn’t hear any of the easy chatting or the laughter or the friendly teasing that she’d expected. In fact, she doesn’t hear anything. And when she draws closer, she realizes that none of the crew are talking, at all. They’re not even looking at each other. Which is…new. This is different from before, when Gem would stay in the van and they’d all be arguing lightly about who would have to do the spirit box. This is different from their loud laughter when Gem had volunteered to do the job and Grian had snatched it out of Impulse’s hand with an annoyed, but distinctly lighthearted, mutter. This is…wrong.
One of the men turns to her, and Gem realizes that that’s Skizz. Somehow, he looks different enough that she almost didn’t recognize him. He’s wearing the same suit as usual, with the sleeves torn off, and the tie loose, but something is…wrong. He looks exhausted, stressed; there are bags under his eyes, and the scruff on his chin is prominent. He gives her a smile that’s so tired that it’s hardly real.
“Hey, guys, she’s here,” he informs the others. His voice is quiet and tight, and Gem feels almost nauseous. She has thought they’d grown close, over the months that she’s helped them out. To the point that Skizz has hugged her when it’s a rough day, and Impulse had made her a little honorary GIGS pin. What happened to change that? Skizz returns his focus to her and tries to force a warm grin, but it just looks sad. “Hey, Gem. Thank you for being here.”
Gem nods and tries to smile back. “Hi, Skizz. Thanks for having me. It’s a pleasure.” She doesn’t know what’s pushing her to be so formal. During the other few times she’s worked with GIGS, they’ve always been so easy to get along with, so welcoming. What’s going on?
“A pleasure, Gem.” He reaches out a hand and she shakes it firmly, gripping his hand with the same strength that she’s always been taught to use in professional settings. “You remember us all, correct? We’ve got Grian, Scar, and Impulse.”
Gem narrows her eyes. Skizz’s voice is carefully controlled, steady, but not in a calm or casual way. It sounds almost rehearsed, like he’s been practicing his lines for ages before she arrived. It’s unnecessary—she’s worked with them a million times before. Of course she knows their names. She doesn’t understand what’s going on here.
“Yeah, I remember you all. Thank you, though,” she responds. “It’s nice to meet all of you. Thank you so much for this opportunity—Mr. Mann, Mr. Esvee.”
She’s nervous, so nervous that she’s resorted to addressing them more formally than she ever has. She’s trying to keep her voice stable so it doesn’t shake, but it’s so much more difficult than it should be. It doesn’t help that Grian is staring at her icily over the tops of his glasses, his shoulders tense and his jaw locked. Hadn’t he been so kind, before, or at least cordial? Gem tries to ignore him, but it’s hard when it feels like his eyes are burning through her skin.
“Please, Gem,” Skizz says. “Just call me Skizz.”
He adjusts his tie, and Gem takes the opportunity to look at the rest of the group. Scar is grinning at her, just as he did whenever she would help out before, but it clashes with the haunted look in his eyes. Grian is still glaring at her piercingly, drilling holes into her skull. Impulse hasn’t even turned to look at her yet, and the sight of his back turned to her is what hurts the most, perhaps.
She’d thought that, if no one else, the man who emailed her so pleasantly would be in her corner.
“Skizz,” Gem agrees in response to Skizz’s request that she call him by his first name. She doesn’t look at the others; she isn’t willing to fall victim to their unintentional intimidation.
Nobody talks; nobody moves. Nobody seems to know what to say. Skizz shifts his weight from one foot to the other, eyes flicking around, looking so very uncomfortable. Grian flexes his hand with an unreadable, stony expression that only wavers into some sort of anxiety when he briefly makes eye contact with Gem before glancing away. Scar still has that horrible fake smile on his face, and it’s kept in place with an almost clinical precision.
Impulse’s shoulders rise and fall in a long, deep breath, and he finally turns to face Gem.
The first thing that Gem notices is how pale he is. Then the redness in his eyes, then the way his hands tremble when he locks his fingers in front of him.
“Thank you for being here, Gem,” he says, and his voice shakes almost imperceptibly. It’s enough that Gem furrows her eyebrows, confused. “It’s a pleasure to have you on the team.” Grian flinches at the sound of Impulse’s voice, and Scar stiffens.
Instead of trying to decipher what that means, Gem nods, smiling politely, though not without a certain amount of tightness. “It’s a pleasure to be here.” She wants to add something else, but she can’t find the words.
Scar snorts. “We’ll see if you’ll be saying that after being around us for a bit.” It’s a joke—said in a joking manner, with a grin on his face.
But something about his expression gives Gem chills, and she has to stop herself from shuddering. There’s a bitter twist to it, something that’s exhausted and stressed and scared.
And, not for the first time, Gem wonders what exactly she’s gotten herself into. Maybe she should’ve stayed as a paperwork girl, after all.
— / — / —
Standing in the van outside of the haunted location, Gem can’t help but feel entirely out of her depth.
Skizz is giving the mission overview, dull and monotone and practiced. Every time his voice cracks for some unknown reason, he just clears his throat and forges onward.
He assigns roles to everyone: himself and Impulse turning on the breaker, Scar and Grian finding the ghost room, and then they’d all move on to their next roles. And Gem would watch over it all from the van, to make sure that nothing goes wrong.
Skizz had hesitated when he said that last part. There had been a long, drawn out pause where he searched for the right words. Gem notices how Impulse flinches at the phrasing. She shoves it off to the side, sealing it in a box in the corner of her mind that’s neatly labeled, “Things To Not Think About Right Now.”
Grian still hasn’t said a word to her, but she can feel his eyes on her. That goes in the box, too.
“Grian, can you take the spirit box to use after you find the room?” Grian purses his lips, but nods. “And Impulse, once we get the breaker, you can set up the video cameras for Gem, right? Or whoever gets to it first, I guess. But you can do the pictures, and maybe the parabolic mic.”
“Yeah.” Impulse’s voice is quiet, subdued. “Yeah, I can do that.”
This isn’t what Gem remembers about the GIGS crew, the ones that have always been famous for the way they care for each other so deeply. This isn’t what she expected from the ones who were always so closely knit every time she’d worked with them in the past. She had expected laughter, banter, anything but this…tension.
“And Scar—how are you feeling? Cane, wheelchair, nothing?”
Scar hums thoughtfully, dropping his ever-present grin as he thinks. “I think I’m okay today. But—I left my harness back at Hermitcraft. I’d have used it, since it’s nice to have my cane hanging from my back when I need it, but…well. Can we keep the cane nearby?”
“It’ll be in the van with Gem,” Skizz promises him, and Scar turns a piercing look onto Gem. She doesn’t shrink under it, but it’s a near thing, because there’s a threat in that look. And Grian’s glare on her sharpens.
“You’ll keep it safe,” Scar states, looking her directly in the eyes. For the first time, he’s not smiling. He’s completely serious, deathly so. His words are only punctuated by the feeling of Grian’s eyes on her.
Gem nods, her breathing strangely shallow. “I will.” It has no doubt in it, and even though Scar scrutinizes her for a moment, he eventually nods and relaxes slightly. Gem can’t help but feel like she’s passed some sort of test.
Skizz clears his throat. “Okay. In that case, Scar, could you take in temp to find the room, and maybe a cruci, just to be safe? And while you do that, either me or Impulse will find the breaker, and then I can go and set up motion and sound sensors around the place. Does that sound good to everyone?”
Everyone starts nodding, but Gem clears her throat and raises her hand. “I—is there anything specific I need to do? I know—I know about the activity board, the cameras, the map…uh, the sanity levels? But is there anything else?” She was never specifically in the van when she helped them in the past. She just did whatever they needed her to do. Usually, they just had her as backup, as a way to revive them if they got wiped by the ghost. She doesn’t know how the van works, not really.
“Uh—yeah. Yeah, sorry.” Skizz clears his throat. “Uh, we never really…had a van guy before, so we kinda just used to deal with it. But, uh, yeah. Keep an eye on activity, let us know if there’s a hunt. Watch cams for ghost orbs or D.O.T.S. or anything else that’s weird, watch the motion sensors and the sound sensors and stuff….” He glances over at Impulse. “Is that all, or is there anything else, Impulse?”
Impulse stiffens at being addressed, but forces his shoulders to drop in a show of being relaxed. “Uh—make sure we don’t go insane. If anyone dips beneath…we’ll say fifteen? If anyone drops beneath fifteen percent sanity, call ‘em out of the house, and they can just recover in the van for a bit. Maybe take some medication to help. Tell us what we need to do when we ask—sometimes the client wants a picture of the ghost or something on the motion sensor or something else as evidence, so let us know about that. And what the ghost’s name is. That’s it, I think.”
Gem nods. “Okay—activity, cams, sensors, sanity, info. Hold on—" she digs into her satchel where it hangs on her hip and pulls out her field journal and a pen. She flips to the very back, where there’s a spot with nothing but lined paper, and clicks the top of her pen.
While she starts to scribble down what they’ve told her, repeating it in her head to make sure she doesn’t forget before she manages to get it onto paper, she hears someone clear their throat.
“What are you doing?”
Gem glances up and meets Grian’s eyes. It’s the first time the man has spoken since Gem arrived, and it’s dripping with a certain amount of judgement. He sounds almost scornful at the fact that she’s trying to make sure she doesn’t forget her responsibilities.
Gem bristles, stiffening. She doesn’t mean to sound so sarcastic when she responds, “Writing it down?” Her eyebrow is raised, and her jaw is tense even as she tries not to sound frustrated. “So I don’t forget?”
“You wouldn’t have forgotten. It’s easy,” Grian dismisses flatly, and Gem grits her teeth briefly. Calm down, calm down, they’re clearly on edge today. Calm. This isn’t the Grian she knew before, who would never try to cut someone down with a sharp response. This isn’t the Grian from the last time she was here. She doesn’t know what has changed.
“Yes,” Gem responds tightly, forcing her voice to stay level. “But I’m new to this job, and I don’t want to forget something important. But thank you for trusting that I have it covered.”
Grian presses his lips together, but doesn’t respond. He just adjusts his glasses and exchanges an unreadable look with Scar that makes the hairs on the back of Gem’s neck stand up on their ends.
Skizz coughs. “Ah—okay. Now that we’ve got that settled, is everyone ready? Impulse, you’ve got the keys? Everyone’s got their stuff? Gem, the computers are hooked up to the cameras? You should have some that are already there, but we’ll set up some others for you, too.”
Gem hums and turns to the deck, where the computer is sitting, ready to be powered up. She clicks the spacebar a few times until it turns on, and after a moment of searching around with the mouse, she manages to find the program that they downloaded with the camera feeds for this particular house. “Yep, I’ve got it,” she informs Skizz, and Skizz nods.
“Okay. Okay. So…I guess….” He clears his throat. “Let’s head on in?”
With Skizz’s awkward—almost nervous—statement that sounds more like a question, they all move to their spots. Gem takes a seat in the chair at the desk in the van, leaning Scar’s cane up against the wall in a safe place. She sets her water bottle beside her, just next to her hunting journal. The others filter out of the van one by one, strangely silent in a way that Gem has never seen them before. It makes her anxious, and she taps the desk with her pointer finger as she tries to focus on the task at hand.
“Gem, can you see where the breaker is on the map? It should appear as a little box with a lightning bolt in it.”
Gem wheels her chair away from the desk and stands up, moving towards the map where it’s tacked onto the wall. She scans it quickly, searching for what Skizz described, but even when she switches from the basement to the ground floor to the second floor, she doesn’t see the little box.
She clicks her earpiece. “Uh, I don’t see it?”
“That’s okay, sometimes they don’t give us a location on the map. We’ll find it, it’s usually in either the basement or the garage, so we’ll figure it out. This isn’t a huge house.”
Even with Skizz’s reassurance, Gem can’t help but feel like she’s already failed at her job. And when she flicks through the cameras, thinking that she should at least try to do part of her job correctly, she sees Grian looking up at her from the living room camera, staring piercingly through her screen as if he can see her.
She clicks off of that camera quickly. Activity, cams, sensors, sanity, info, she repeats to herself. That’s all she has to do. Activity, cams, sensors, sanity, info.
The activity levels are fine. Every once in a while, they bounce from zero to three to two and back down, but Gem’s keeping an eye on them. They never go above three or four.
Nothing is happening on the cameras. She watches as Impulse finds the breaker in the basement and calls, “Breaker’s on,” in a dull voice. She watches as Skizz sets up motion and sound sensors on every floor. She watches as Scar finds the room—it’s the kitchen—and a new camera flickers into action on her screen as Impulse turns it on and sets it on the kitchen counter. It’s pointed too far to the left, and it’s cutting off the entire right side of the kitchen. But Grian is floating around, talking into the spirit box monotonously, so Gem clears her throat and taps her earpiece.
“Hey, Grian, would you mind pointing the camera a bit more to the right? It would be your left.”
On the camera, Gem watches as Grian glances over to where the video camera is sitting on the counter. She sees him lift his hand to his ear. “It looks fine to me.”
Gem takes a calming breath. “I can’t see half the kitchen, I just need it a little more to the right.”
“You’ll be able to see whatever you need to see, it’s fine the way it is.”
“I’ll come in to do it, if you’d rather me take care of it myself.” Admittedly, some frustration slips through her tone, even as she tries to stay calm and professional through the part of her that’s fighting to escape the cage that she made to contain it. She has to bite her tongue so she doesn’t try to apologize or take back her words out of a sort of instinct that she’s always had. She refuses to apologize for something that she fully meant.
She’s about to stand up from the chair and march into the house to adjust the camera herself when Grian begins to move. He reaches out for the camera, and for a moment, his hand covers the lens and the kitchen is obscured. When he pulls back, the camera is positioned perfectly.
“Better?” Grian asks tightly over the radio.
“Much better, yeah,” Gem confirms. “Thank you.”
Grian doesn’t respond, but Gem smiles at the camera anyways. She’s not sure if that’s progress or not, but in this game where she’s been losing the entire time, she’ll take it as a win.
She focuses back on her tasks. Activity board? Check. Cameras? Check. Next on the list: sensors.
Almost as soon as she turns to the board to check the sensors, one of them goes off. It surprises her, and she jolts, nearly knocking her chair over. The sensor that goes off is in the dining room, which is directly next to the kitchen, and Gem clicks on her radio. “Is anyone in the dining room? I’ve got a motion sensor going off.”
There’s no response. Gem shifts nervously. “Guys? Can you hear me?” Anxiously, she checks the activity levels—is there a hunt that she didn’t notice? Are the others in danger? But no, the activity is wavering at a comfortable one or two, with the occasional peak up to four.
Just as she’s about to ask again, her earpiece fuzzes with brief static. “Sorry,” Scar says hoarsely in response. “Sorry, that was—that was me. I was in the dining room. Sorry.”
Gem furrows her eyebrows. Why is he apologizing so much? She’s not upset, she just wanted to know what was going on. She just wanted someone to answer her, even. Hesitantly, she taps her earpiece. “It’s—it’s fine, I just wanted to check. No worries at all.”
There’s no response after that, but Gem feels uneasy. She distracts herself by moving to the next of her responsibilities: checking everyone’s sanity.
If she remembers correctly—which she does, because she wrote it down in her hunting journal so she wouldn’t forget—she has to make sure that no one drops below 15 percent sanity. So she checks the board.
The sanity board lists all of their names, with a long, thin bar beneath that shows how sane they are. In the center of the bar, there’s a percentage, as well. At the top of the board, there’s a number for the group’s overall sanity. When Gem looks at herself, her bar is nearly completely full, and the number tells her that she’s at 94 percent.
She checks Scar’s, next. His is much lower than hers—bobbing around halfway, with his number flickering between 49 and 50 percent—but nothing concerning, so she moves on.
Skizz’s is the next lowest, around a third full. Gem can’t help but wonder how they all have such different levels—of course, it makes sense that she has the highest, but Scar and Skizz have been in the same house for the same amount of time. How is it that Skizz is nearly 20 percent beneath Scar when it comes to sanity?
She makes a mental note to ask Impulse about it, then scraps that idea. If anyone, she’ll be asking Skizz, or maybe Xisuma. Impulse doesn’t seem like he wants to be bothered, today.
When Gem checks Grian’s sanity, it’s around the same as Skizz’s, but it’s draining slowly but steadily. Even as Gem watches, it drops one percent, and then another. She’ll keep an eye on it, she decides, but she won’t mention it to the others until it gets too low for comfort. For now, she’ll check on Impulse’s sanity.
Gem turns to Impulse’s sanity bar, and her heart leaps into her throat.
It’s low. It’s really low, already below ten percent. As Gem watches, stiff in mild horror, it dips from eight down to seven, and then up to nine before wavering back down to eight. Below 15. She needs to tell Impulse.
Her throat tight, she fumbles for her earpiece. “Impulse? Impulse, I need you out in the van, please, your sanity is low.”
For one terrible moment, there’s no response, and Gem wonders if she was too late. But then, there’s static over the radio, and Impulse responds quietly, “How low?”
Gem blinks. “Uh—just under ten percent. Come on out, please, so you can recover.”
“I’ll be fine,” Impulse dismisses, but there’s an underlying sense of tension beneath his casual words. “I’ve dealt with lower sanity before. Just let me know if it gets to zero, and then we’ll see how it goes.”
Gem blinks incredulously. Is she going crazy? She turns to the board to check her own sanity, but no, she’s still hovering around 90 percent. She clears her throat. “Uh, Impulse, I really need you to come out to the van, please.”
“I’m fine, Gem,” Impulse repeats, slightly harsher. His words have just enough bite to them that it makes Gem flinch, knocks the breath from her lungs. She shakes her head, tries to recollect her thoughts.
“No, you’re not,” she states bluntly. “You were the one who told me to get you out of the house if you dipped under 15 percent, and now you have to follow through on that.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about, Gem,” Impulse informs her sharply. “I’m telling you that it’s fine. Okay? So drop it.” His words have a sort of warning to them, a certain amount of condescension that reminds her of the many times that she’s been written off for being a woman in the ghost hunting world. It reminds her of not being listened to, and she grits her teeth.
“Listen here, Impulse Esvee,” she responds to him in the same tone that he’d used, sharp and curt. “If you don’t come out to this van to take sanity medication—or at least take a break—then I will march on into that house myself and drag you out by your ear. Do I make myself clear?”
For a moment, Impulse doesn’t respond. Gem is breathing heavily, feeling somehow lightheaded. She just argued with her team leader. She just yelled at her team leader. She’ll be lucky to be allowed to stick around another day after this, let alone stay for another investigation.
Someone whistles. Gem can’t tell who it is, but they did it on the radio, so they clearly wanted it to be heard. Unable to tell if it’s mocking or not, she swallows harshly, trying to calm her breathing.
The radio spikes with static. “Okay,” Impulse responds tightly, though there’s no sign of frustration anymore, and Gem nearly topples over in dizzy relief. “I’ll be out in a moment.”
A heartbeat passes, and then Skizz adds on to Impulse’s words, “Good job, Gem.”
Gem inhales, surprised. She almost expects Skizz to take it back, or correct himself, but he doesn’t. And Gem thinks that, maybe, she hasn’t lost her job yet after all.
— / — / —
When Impulse arrives at the van, he refuses to look her in the eyes.
Gem already has the medication set out for him, along with a sealed plastic water bottle. He looks at it—glances from her to the water bottle to the medication and back to her—and Gem coughs.
“I don’t usually like using plastic water bottles, because they suck for the environment,” she informs him, “but it was all I could find. So there you go.”
Impulse blinks at it dully. “I can take it without the water,” he tells her, still avoiding her eyes, and Gem scoffs. She’s very aware of the way his sanity keeps dropping, even in the van. It’s odd, and it’s making her nervous. She’s never seen something like this before.
“Not today, you can’t. I don’t care if you have the physical ability to dry-swallow that stupid pill, you are going to take it with water because it’s safer, and it’s easier to swallow, and it makes it more effective, and also, I don’t trust any of you four to actually hydrate yourselves properly. So drink the water.”
Impulse freezes for a moment, then nods, and Gem’s eyebrows shoot up at his easy acceptance. “Okay.” He uncaps the water bottle and pops the pill into his mouth before tipping his head back and lifting the water bottle to his lips. He takes a few gulps, then sets it down with one last swallow.
Gem nods approvingly, despite how awkward it feels to be ordering around the man who’s in charge of things, here. “Thank you. Sit in here for a minute, until it takes effect.”
Impulse shakes his head. “It works immediately, look.” He gestures to his bar on the sanity board, and it’s true; his sanity is already three times as much as it had been, and it’s still rising. Still, Gem presses her lips together.
“Humor me?” she requests quietly, almost vulnerable in the way her voice trembles almost imperceptibly. If Impulse dies, then things will get tense. Things will get bad. She can’t handle having to deal with a death.
Impulse scrutinizes her, and it feels like he’s staring into her soul. Eventually, his face softens. “Okay, Gem,” he responds, and it’s oddly gentle in a way that starkly contrasts how he’d been treating her before.
Gem relaxes. Her shoulders slump. “Thank you,” she murmurs, relieved. Impulse nods.
For a moment, he’s silent. He doesn’t speak, and Gem doesn’t try to fill the silence with meaningless conversation. She just returns her focus to whatever is next on her list—does she need to give them information? Or is she back to checking the activity?—as she tries to blink back the frustratingly stubborn tears that keep pricking at her eyes.
“I’m—I’m so sorry, Gem.”
Impulse’s voice—hoarse, almost broken—shocks her out of her thoughts. She jolts, startled, then turns to look at Impulse.
The man’s face is taut with guilt. He wrings his hands so harshly that Gem worries distantly that he’s going to dislocate his fingers. He still refuses to look Gem in the eyes.
Gen clears her throat, feeling so incredibly out of her depth. “Uh—what are you sorry for?”
“Gem, can we get the ghost’s name?” Skizz calls over the radio. Gem coughs and turns to the board quickly.
“Uh—hold on—" She clicks her radio. “Gregory Watts! Gregory Watts.”
“Thank you!”
“Mhm.” She turns off her radio and looks back to Impulse. “Sorry about that.”
“No, no, don’t—" Impulse swallows. “Don’t apologize. Listen, Gem, I—I’m sorry. I’m really sorry. You—we’ve been treating you terribly all day. You don’t deserve that.”
Gem blinks. “It’s—it wasn’t that bad.”
Impulse raises his eyebrows, almost incredulous. “We’ve been awful to you, Gem. Especially me. We ignored you, we didn’t listen to you…we treated you like an outsider, not like a part of the team. And I’m incredibly sorry for that. I…I completely understand if you’d rather not work with this team, or if you want to ask Xisuma to reassign you or something. I’d—I’d even file the paperwork myself, if it made things easier for you.” It sounds like it pains him to say this. Almost scares him, even.
Gem shifts from one foot to the other. “Impulse,” she says slowly, her throat tight. “This—that’s not anything…weird for me. If I had quit every time my coworkers didn’t listen to me, I would’ve never gotten to this point.”
“But—" Impulse shakes his head, bewildered. His eyebrows are furrowed. “Gem, you realize that’s—that’s not good, right? Your coworkers are supposed to—to listen to you and hear you out and stuff. Why—"
Gem laughs, but it’s bitter enough that it’s nearly a scoff. It makes Impulse stop, stare at her with wide eyes. “Ghost hunting isn’t a woman’s world, Impulse,” she informs him bluntly. “I interviewed at seventeen ghost hunting places before Hermitcraft took me. Seventeen. Big, government-affiliated ones, and small independent ones, and everything in between. Two thirds of them turned me down because I had ‘inherent qualities that wouldn’t be a good fit for the position.’ Or the job ‘wasn’t fit for someone of my gender,’ or whatever other way they came up with to tell me that I’m useless for being a woman.”
Gem pauses, lets her words sink in. Impulse stays silent. He doesn’t interrupt her; he must sense that she isn’t done, yet.
Gem huffs and continues. “Sure, a few of them hired me. Until they had someone new to fill the position. And it turned out that the only ones who gave me a reasonable offer were the creepiest people I’ve ever met. Believe it or not, this is one of my better first days on the job.”
Impulse freezes, swallows harshly. For the first time, he lifts his head and looks her directly in the eyes. She holds his gaze, not harsh or angry, but definitely intense. Impulse exhales. “Oh.” He pauses. “I…I hadn’t realized that it was so....” He stops. “I didn’t know,” he finishes lamely, and Gem releases a puff of air.
“It’s fine,” she tells him. “I’m used to it. And I’m here now, aren’t I? So as long as you aren’t kicking me out, I want to be here. I’m not leaving unless you fire me.”
“We’re not firing you,” Impulse states firmly, and Gem blinks. That’s…not what she’d expected. She had thought that she’d messed everything up already, which honestly might have set a new record for her. “We’re—we’re really going to try to be better, okay? I’m sorry that we’ve been treating you so terribly. You don’t deserve that, and we’re—we’ll cut it out. Things have been…weird, lately—"
“Yeah, so, about that?” Gem clears her throat, and Impulse’s eyebrows shoot up. “You want to tell me what’s going on? Like, why everyone’s being so weird? I can’t help if I don’t know what happened—or, I can try, but you can’t blame me when I mess it all up.”
Impulse exhales, long and tired. He purses his lips in deep though, and draws his eyebrows together in such a way that Gem thinks he’s going to get a headache. He swallows, then sighs. “It’s…not all of it is mine to say,” he warns, and Gem nods. She can accept that. “But…recently, we ended up dealing with an investigation that went…it went really badly.”
The solemnity in Impulse’s voice sends chills down Gem’s spine. In an attempt to escape, even if just for a moment, she checks the activity—low as it’s ever been—and everyone’s sanity, which is steady for the time being. With nothing else to do, her eyes flicker back to Impulse. “…Yeah?”
Impulse nods gravely. “It—“ he takes a shuddering breath. “Without getting too much into it,” he murmurs slowly, “I—I had a particularly…intimate interaction with a Demon.”
Gem looks at Impulse’s face—pale, drawn, jaw tight—and a horrible sense of dread descends onto her.
Oh.
Oh.
“You were possessed,” she realizes, a pit forming in her stomach as Impulse flinches at the words. She grimaces, about to apologize, but Impulse nods grimly.
“I said—and did—some—" he stumbles over his words, and Gem’s throat tightens. “Some truly awful things, while I was…influenced. Especially—" Impulse cuts off. He shudders. “Especially to Scar and Grian.”
“Oh.” Gem doesn’t know how to respond. “And—and that’s why—"
“Yeah.” Impulse’s voice is quiet. “Yeah, that’s why.”
Gem goes silent for a moment. She swallows, her thoughts reeling in her head. Impulse glances down, avoids her eyes, and Gem clears her throat. “It wasn’t your—"
“I know,” Impulse rushes to interrupt her. Gem’s frown deepens. “I—I couldn’t control it.”
But the way he says it doesn’t sound like he’s trying to give himself grace. It sounds like a judgement; I couldn’t control it. I was too weak.
Gem purses her lips. “Impulse. You know that you didn’t ask to be possessed, right? You couldn’t have stopped it.”
Impulse manages a weak smile. “I appreciate it, Gem, but I should have seen the signs. Maybe my actions weren’t my own, but the blame still falls on me.”
Gem sighs. “Impulse—"
She’s cut off by the crackle of radio static. “Impulse, if you’re okay now, we need you back in here,” Skizz calls through their earpieces.
Impulse taps his earpiece. “I’m on my way.” He casts a sad smile at Gem. “Sorry, Gem. Duty calls.”
With that, he turns and exits the van. Gem watches him leave, realizing that she might have more work cut out for her than she’d known.