Chapter Text
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“…and this,” a dramatic pause, “is the master bedroom. It has its own door to the porch, and arguably the best view of the beach in—”
A scream cut him off. Thomas sighed. This was getting ridiculous. He excused himself from the group of concerned potential buyers and made his way to the living room. Which was ironic.
“Ma’am? Is everything alright?” he asked resignedly. He was so used to the scene in front of him: someone standing in a puddle of water, flower petals in their hair, and a now plastic vase at their feet. This wasn’t the first time it’d happened, but he would never stop hoping it would be the last.
“The–there was a…a…I don’t know what it was,” she wailed, looking quite pathetic in her wet state.
Thomas plucked a towel from where he kept them – under the couch – and handed it to her. He listened to her as she rambled on about the vase upending itself on her and dried her hair (at this point, he was in a pretty good position to write scientific essays on the behaviours of wet people, male and female. Females went for hair first, while males were…all over the place, really. In fact, now that he actually thought about it, they didn’t exactly have a solid approach. Huh. He might have to observe some more).
“I’m very sorry that this happened, and I hope it won’t affect your decisions with making a purchase,” Thomas said carefully, testing the waters to see how to handle this particular case. Some ran out of the house, some shrieked like hyenas – one memorable case was the time a pro-wrestler had come to look at the house, and after seeing a vase float by itself and dump its contents on his head, had let out the most god-awfully high pitched and bolted – and some were perfectly willing to blame it on a faulty shelf. Even knowing that the vase had been on a table around knee-height. Thomas was astounded at the capacities of the human brain sometimes.
“Oh, I could never live here, not with its haunted vases,” the woman said. Thomas froze for a moment before recognising the statement for what it was: a joke. He morphed his face into a laugh, and she continued, “Actually, I would never be able to live here. My knees wouldn’t be able to deal with the stairs.”
Thomas hid his disappointment like the well trained real estate agent he was. “I have plenty of houses without stairs, if you’d like to take a look.”
The house was very old, but had been renovated very recently and was practically new. After the fifth incident, Thomas had looked to see if there were any records of deaths in the house, but as far as he could tell, its history was pretty clean. He had no idea why it had a poltergeist.
The only thing left from the original house was its frame. After the eighth incident, Thomas had gone to an old shaman, procured hex bags meant for warding the house against spirits, and stuffed them as instructed. He’s thought it had worked until the ninth incident.
So then he brought a psychic to the house, and the psychic had done something with smoke and incense that had taken forever to get out of the house. And it hadn’t even worked.
After the fifth person he’d brought in to try and solve his issue had said, “This is just a bad case of mould”, he gave up. And even though his sale record was impeccable (apart from this, which should honestly be considered an outlier), he was still known around the agency as the man with the unsellable house.
Figured.
“Okay, everyone’s gone now, you can quit twitching,” he called to the house bitterly as he fixed up pillows and put all the real fruit in a basket. There wouldn’t be another open house session here for another three days, and there was no point in leaving around fruit that was going to rot in that time. Better take it back to the office kitchen.
The house, surprisingly, stopped its creaking. That almost never worked. The lights automatically turned on as Thomas walked into rooms, and turned off again as he left them. He huffed a breath in surprise. “You’re being nice. Finally feeling guilty for chasing off all my customers?”
Immediately, all the shutters closed with a loud crack and the lights turned off, leaving Thomas in darkness. His response? Yelling at the house some more.
“…swear to God, one of these days,” he muttered under his breath as he made his way to the hall, “I’m gonna ‘accidentally’ light this place on fire and leave it to burn. With you in it.”
The lights flickered on slowly.
“Thank you,” Thomas said pointedly. He felt like a parent to a teenager some of these days. Good lord, why was this his life?
The office was quiet when Thomas entered at midday, and he figured it was probably the unofficial lunch break everyone took at this time for some unknown reason. He walked through the creaky door into the kitchen and break area, and deposited his bag of apples into one of the many fruit baskets sitting on the counter. Because they had an “our houses are fresh!” thing (which Thomas didn’t understand. Wouldn’t it be more sustainable using fake fruit?) there was always fruit hanging around the office from the display houses. But people always seemed to appreciate being told they could snack on them, so maybe it was working.
“Hey, how’d it go?” A deep voice asked from behind Thomas.
Thomas turned and pulled a face at James Madison, his best friend. Partner in crime. Work buddy. His platonic everything, really. “The poltergeist struck again. Seven minutes in. Seven minutes.”
James snorted. “That’s a new record. Must’ve had a really bad group.”
“I wouldn’t know,” Thomas muttered darkly, going to the refrigerator and peering inside for his coconut water. So what if he got looks from the rest of the office, who were all hardcore coffee addicts? His skin was definitely better than theirs. “I didn’t have the time to get to know them.”
James smiled sympathetically. “Do you need to talk about it?” he asked Thomas in the most obnoxiously cliché psychiatrist voice. God, why did no one believe him when he told them James was a Reddit user?
“That depends,” Thomas said, plopping down onto a chair. “Are you going to get as smackdoodled as the last time I took you up on your offer?”
“I can’t believe you still call it ‘smackdoodled’ but no, that was one time. And I had reason to want to drink myself to oblivion.”
Thomas felt the stirrings of concern in the pit of his stomach. James was fine now, but he hadn’t always been. (And his actions Back Then had led to a big list of health issues now, and Thomas couldn’t help but keep an eye out for any signs of it returning).
James saw his look and clarified, “I meant your thing with Hamilton. You complained about his four-hour long speech for five hours.”
Thomas shook his head. It felt wrong to complain about Hamilton, what with his current condition. “Is it weird that I miss his stupid, stupid–”
James cut him off. “Anyway, I should get back to my desk. I’ve got deadlines to meet.” With that, he snagged Thomas’ coconut water – still half full, damn him – and sauntered away.
Thomas opened the door to the apartment he shared with his brother, Gilbert. Gilbert was adopted, and had a huge name and title, but to Thomas he’d always been ‘Gilbert’. He didn’t like telling people his name was ‘Gilbert’, mostly because the majority butchered the pronunciation – and Gilbert was very determined to hold onto the French part of himself, even though he considered himself an American – but he’d told Thomas he liked the way he said it, so Thomas continued.
“I’m home,” Thomas called out to the living room as he entered. Gilbert would normally be home by now, but since the incident, he’d been coming and going at random. But as luck would have it, he was sitting on the couch tonight.
“Thomas,” he greeted him, his French accent more pronounced with Thomas than with others. “You’re later than usual.”
“Yeah, had to file these documents for a new buyer. The guy’s a mess.”
Gilbert hummed at the right places, letting Thomas know he didn’t care. Thomas sighed. “What’s up?” And before Gilbert could open his mouth, he added, “and don’t say ‘the ceiling’. That got old centuries ago.”
Gilbert grumbled good-naturedly before sliding down the couch until he lay there stretched across the entire thing, placing his hand on his forehead dramatically. “I am in love.”
Thomas snorted before going to the fridge to get coconut water. He needed to be hydrated if he was going to have to listen to Gilbert’s ‘I am in love’ rant. His brother ‘falling in love’ was a common occurrence, and ever since that one crush back in high school, it had somehow become Thomas’ job to listen and advise him. Not that he ever followed the advice.
He could still hear parts of what Gilbert was saying: “…are like stars, and his hair! Thomas, you should see his hair, it’s les meilleurs cheveux que j’ai jamais vu!” So Thomas had missed the rambling in English and Gilbert was now to the French bit. That was good; he’d probably spend another ten minutes at this, and then finally slow down enough for Thomas to get actual details. Like who his crush was.
He moved Gilbert’s legs to his lap as he sat down (they really needed to get around to buying another couch, but there were only two of them so it wasn’t exactly the most urgent issue), his elbows firmly pressed down on his shins to stop any sudden movements. He zoned out, partly listening, until Gilbert said, “Je ne pense pas qu’il m’aime bien.”
Then he sat up. “What?” Switching to French – because if Gilbert switched languages like this, it took longer to get answers from him in English – he repeated, “What?”
“He used to allow me to stay in the same room as Alexander when he was treating him or doing check-ups, so I could observe him, but now he rushes me or himself out when I walk in.”
Wait…Alexander? “Are we talking about Hamilton?”
“Yes, John is his nurse.” Gilbert frowned slightly. “I told you this a month ago.”
“I probably wasn’t paying attention when you mentioned it.”
“Apples?”
“What?”
“You said you probably weren’t paying apples when I mentioned it. Did you mean ‘attention’?”
Thomas threw a pillow at Gilbert’s head to cover up his ears heating up in embarrassment. “Yes, I meant ‘attention’.”
“You should practise your French more. We never talk anymore.” Gilbert tossed the pillow back at him, almost knocking over the empty glass of coconut water sitting on the coffee table beside Thomas. “But back to John.”
“So John’s Hamilton’s nurse?”
“Yes. He’s been taking care of him since the beginning.”
Alexander Hamilton was in a coma. He’d been exposed to carbon monoxide from a faulty gas water heater and if it hadn’t been for Gilbert barging in when he did and seeing him seizing on the floor, he may not have survived. It’d taken Gilbert days to finally be convinced to leave Hamilton’s hospital room (actually, he wasn’t convinced so much as forcibly removed by Thomas). And a day after that, the Washingtons (Hamilton’s adopted parents) had decided to move him back to their home, and get a nurse to come in daily. Gilbert had been going over to the Washingtons’ house every day. He said he was learning how to ‘do basic medical treatments’, but now Thomas wondered…
“So, this whole time you’ve been ‘learning the basics’, you’ve just been hanging with your crush?”
Gilbert protested loudly at this. “I wouldn’t put another’s life at risk just because I happened to be gazing into the most beautiful eyes…”
And he was off again. Thomas leaned back into the couch, contemplating on whether he could turn the TV on without Gilbert noticing.
There was a stranger at the door. Thomas didn’t know who this person was or what they’d come here for, he just wanted them to realise that they had woken him up on his day off and would pay for it with their soul.
Okay, so maybe he should’ve had coffee before interacting with strangers who didn’t know how he was in the morning.
“Can I help you,” he said flatly, his voice making the question a statement. He crossed his arms and leaned against the doorframe, his bed hair making a comfortable pillow against the cool wood.
“Uh,” came the eloquent reply from the tall, buff man standing outside his door. “Is Lafayette here?” He shifted awkwardly, not exactly uncomfortable standing there with Thomas’ piercing glare but not willing to leave, either.
This was probably one of Gilbert’s friends from university. Thomas hadn’t met any of them yet; too busy with work to align his and Gilbert’s schedules. He looked the man up and down, mentally patting himself on the head when he saw the man gulp slightly.
“He should be home,” Thomas finally said. “Come in, I’ll go get him.” Before turning, he asked, “What’s your name?”
The man answered, “Hercules Mulligan, but call me Herc.” Damn, what a name.
“I’m Thomas.” And judging by the way Herc’s expression changed, it appeared that Gilbert had mentioned him.
Thomas barged into Gilbert’s room as loudly as he could, and went straight to the window. He pulled the blinds back smoothly, smirking in satisfaction when Gilbert groaned at the ray of sunlight hitting him directly in the face. “Get up, there’s someone here for you.”
A voice came from under the pile of blankets. Thomas paused. “What?”
There was a shuffling noise, and a face popped out. “Who is it?”
“A Hercules Mulligan.” Now Thomas watched Gilbert’s face to see how he’d react to this person. (So maybe Thomas was a little paranoid when it came to people. He’d spent a childhood observing his mother, and by the time he’d realised he shouldn’t have to go to so much effort to please her, it’d become a habit. And the psychology courses he’d taken for his job had helped his observation skills. As did the amount of Sherlock Holmes he’d read during his detective phase.) Gilbert’s face changed to read oh shit as he hurriedly threw himself out of bed, stripping as fast as he could.
“He’s a friend,” Gilbert called as he hurriedly brushed his teeth and attempted to pull on jeans at the same time. It would’ve worked better if he’d been putting them on the right way. “He’s offered to give me a ride to the Washingtons’ house and I completely forgot.”
With that he grabbed a scrunchie – he claimed they were less likely to snap, and Thomas had to agree – and pulled back his hair. “Water the children for me,” he called as he exited the room.
‘The children’ were Gilbert’s houseplants. He’d started out with a present from their mother – and Thomas wasn’t going to comment on how she’d specifically gotten Gilbert a housewarming present and given him a gift voucher – and named it Georges. After his favourite professor, George Washington. (Gilbert had ignored his complaints on how creepy it was). They’d lived here for a few years now, and currently had a Martha (Martha Washington), Adrienne (some girl he’d left behind in France and still talked to…and here Thomas was not even managing to keep the friends he saw everyday), Alexander (after Hamilton, and this one was a cactus that couldn’t seem to die, despite Thomas’ best efforts to kill it), Margarita (after some girl from one of his classes), and so far, there had been five plants named Thomas. Gilbert had somehow managed to kill off every plant he named after Thomas, and at this point Thomas didn’t know what to think.
Thomas contemplated going back into the living room and completing his host duties (he could just hear Hamilton’s sneering tone talking about him and his Southern sensibilities) but decided against it. Gilbert could do that.
He had to go to that godforsaken house and try a séance.