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31_days2005-09-27 11:40 pm
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[September the Twenty-Seventh] [Original] Effective Exorcism for the Spiritually Challenged
[September the Twenty-Seventh] [Original] Effective Exorcism for the Spiritually Challenged
Title: Effective Exorcism for the Spiritually Challenged
Day/Theme: September 27: Chasing the metaphysical express
Series: Original
Character/Pairing: Gale, Palomir (Cake Mafia-verse)
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Palomir's got a ghost problem.
A/N: Practice for AU month, in a way - I like ghosts as a writing subject, just not as horror movie presences, and think that the potential for amusement where the restless dead are concerned is wildly underrated. PWP, totally. CRACK FIC AHOY
Gale is known for doing odd things on occasion (that is to say, on any occasion she feels like doing odd things). Even so, Palomir is caught by surprise when she casually snags him by the collar, huffs into his neck and solemnly informs him, "You smell like dead people."
The gravity of her tone is somewhat belied by her next words. "You should take a bath. You've got to get it early on, y'know."
For the next week and a half, Palomir's appearance is more impeccable than usual, and he tells himself very definitely that this is not because Gale has remarked on his grooming habits. Not. At. All.
Palomir is not by nature a superstitious man, and Gale is a highly unstable and inscrutably fond of dramatics if it looks remotely impressive, so he dismisses the sinister comment as what he perceives it to be, a slight on his personal upkeep. He can't help but feel irritated and a little genuinely betrayed, because really, Gale hasn't struck him as the type to make petty insults like this.
He's so wrapped up in his own thoughts that he doesn't think much of it when his favorite teaspoon disappears from his sugarbowl.
And when he comes back one evening to find that drawers he distinctly remembers leaving shut have been opened, he's too tired to do anything about it. Besides, in the morning, they've all been shut.
This goes on for almost two weeks.
It's on the thirteenth day, when he wakes to the feeling of something cold and heavy pressing on his chest, hypersensitive nerves prickling like chain lightning down his spine, he begins to think that there is something more than a question of questionable hygiene at hand. The invisible pressure vanishes as mysteriously as it arrives, and Palomir sits up gingerly, thinking.
Somewhat grimly, he has to conclude there is nothing to do but to ask for some help.
Gale pre-empts him before he can even open his mouth, sauntering into his cubby the minute he checks in. He feels a mixture of irritation and slight embarrassment when the girl reels back sharply as though physically struck, eyes watering as she clutches her nose. "Phew!" she gasps, fluttering a hand frantically in front of her face. "Palomir, what've you been -doing-? It's gotten worse!"
The elf looks affronted, but replies with stiff formality. "You said something about dead people before. What did you mean?"
The girl looks at him askance, then shifts her stance, feet apart and arms akimbo. "Y'really don't know?" The question is disbelieving; she's astonished beyond belief.
"I felt... something this morning," Palomir says, motivated to speak by an impulse he can't quite understand. "I thought you'd know what to do about it."
Gale's gaze has turned sharp and animal, though her thoughts are not focused. It would seem, rather, that she's considering something very far beyond the here and now. "I'll come with you after work's done," she says, her voice distant. "It looks like I'll have to do it myself." She doesn't sound too unpleased.
Not for the first time, Palomir wonders what he has gotten himself into.
---
The elf does not keep an untidy home, but even so, he feels a prickle of self-consciousness when Gale walks in behind him, and silently hopes that he hasn't inadvertently left a pair of underpants crumpled over some piece of furniture or something equally undignified. The girl doesn't seem to be in a state of mind to worry about the neatness of his apartment, though. When he turns to her, he's just in time to catch her hastily tying a paisley-patterned handkerchief over her twitching nose.
"It's even worse here," Gale grumbles, her voice muffled by the cloth. Palomir gingerly removes the fedora from his head and hangs it off the rack by the doorway, refusing to comment. The girl doesn't seem to much notice or mind, as she's already set off to poke her nose about his home, like a particularly inquisitive, oversized cat. The elf can't imagine what she's looking for, though, as he knows she's already thoroughly explored the flat on many an occasion.
Perhaps, he ponders, Gale finds a strange kind of novelty in her first invited visit.
He hears a squeal of delight and a squeaking of springs shortly after; mildly alarmed (though more concerned for the articles of furniture's well-being than the girl), Palomir rushes towards the sound, coming to a slackjawed stop in the middle of the doorway to his own room.
Gale is bouncing on his bed, giggling like a little girl, skirts flying with every bounce and giddy whooping filling the air.
"Palomir!" she yells happily, completely (to all appearances) bereft of self-consciousness. "You didn't tell me your bed bounced this well!" The sound of her bottom soundly impacting with the mattress seems to underline the statement.
"You've been holding out, you jerk! Not that I blame you," she adds, as an afterthought. "If I had digs this comfortable, I wouldn't be spreading it around either."
Gale wallows on the bed, happier than a pig in mud. Her appalling indolence transforms the clean sheets and twin-sized mattress that Palomir has not, prior to this moment, ever thought of in terms beyond 'serviceable' into a veritable pleasure palace of
The elf's mouth goes into a thin, hard line, channeling the near-heart-attack she'd given him into righteous irritation.
"Gale, get off the bed," he orders curtly. By now he's taken off the tie as well, and without its nooselike presence around his neck, he feels a little less helpless. And this is his house, in the end.
His new sense of control, though, apparently doesn't mean anything to his boss, still tie-enabled herself and forsaking bouncing in favor of wriggling on the bed like a landed catfish completely upsetting the formerly-immaculate bedspread. Gale puckers her lips and sticks her tongue out at him impishly, lying belly-up with her head tilted back to peer at him.
"Spoilsport," she accuses complacently, without any true rancor. She rolls over onto her stomach and continues. "Besides, I'm just getting comfortable. We're going to be spending most of the night on this thing, after all."
Palomir takes a moment to sort through that, eyebrows quirked. And then understanding crashes in like a hurricane.
"What?"
---
This is the most awkward situation Palomir has ever found himself in, and he's still not sure how he's gotten here.
He and Gale have wormed underneath the covers of his bed, together. Thankfully, the girl hadn't made any fuss about changing clothes or respecting privacy; in fact, while he'd opted for a looser shirt and highly informal shorts, she climbed into the bed fully clothed in her orange dress, shucking off socks and shoes on the way.
To compound to that, while they started out with their backs facing each other (and in Palomir's case, as close to the edge as he could manage), the girl's spreadeagled out in her sleep, draping a leg and an arm over Palomir, who pointedly remains on his side and refrains from rolling over. Her touch makes him itch. The thing is, the hand carelessly flung across him dangles Gale's signature bubblegum-pink gun from its half-nerveless fingers. Even if she seems asleep, Palomir doesn't want to risk startling Gale into shooting him in the kidney, or worse.
And if he'd allow himself to be completely honest, he doesn't mind the warmth and pressure of her limbs that much. Letting someone hug you is worlds different from hugging someone yourself, and with Gale, it seems, 'letting' her do anything is more of a law of nature than a choice.
Against his will, and more comfortable than he would ever admit to being, Palomir falls asleep.
He wakes up to being half-tumbled out of bed to the accompaniment of muffled gunshots, and when he opens his eyes, the afterimage of fireworks burns into his retinas.
"Missed it!" Gale yells vehemently, and he can feel her weight roll off the bed.
Palomir thinks, all in all, that this is not an auspicious start to the day.
The clock's been broken since he's come here. The display blinks a sullen red 12:00 AM from its position on the mantle, and the elf closes his eyes.
No. Definitely not.
---
"It won't go," Gale murmurs sharply, eyes wide, and she rounds on him, the proximity of her pivoting form forcing him a step back. "I told you to take a bath already!"
"I've -been- taking baths!" Palomir snaps, irritation at her less-than-generous jibing seeping through.
Gale's eyes narrow into calculating slits. "Baths?" she queries suddenly, "Or showers?"
"Ba -- showers, yes," the elf blinks at the change in topic, wondering what that has to do with anything. "Why?"
"That's the problem, then," Gale says simply, and before he can protest another word, she's grabbed him by the wrist and hauled him off towards the bathroom.
---
Palomir waits, a bit apprehensively, as the water pools into the bathtub. He and Gale are still fully clothed except for their feet; the cold tiles feel like ice against his soles. Gale watches the tub as hot water pours into it, steam wafting off the liquid and making the air difficult to breathe.
For some reason, the girl has insisted on unhitching the bathroom mirror (thankfully, it's not a medicine cabinet one) from its hooks and propping it in the middle of the doorway, reflective side facing out. Her explanation is a simple, pragmatic "Mirrors trap spirits" and Palomir hasn't the faintest idea what to say to that.
Instead, he watches while she waits for the tub to come to three-quarters full, then shuts off the water and turns to him.
"Alright," Gale announces cheerfully. "In you go!"
That is all the warning the elf gets before she seizes him by the front of his shirt and proceeds to dump him into the tub, fully clothed.
He barely has time to squawk before the water closes over his head, and distantly, he can hear the sound of the mirror shattering.
---
Palomir doesn't think of that night if he can help it, and Gale doesn't bring the subject up again. On the plus side, however, he hasn't woken up feeling like being choked ever again, and he supposes that is a good thing (and a small mercy, since it means Gale will never have to 'exorcise' him again).
It does come up once, though, when Gale silently gives him a small shard that appears to have come from a mirror, duct-taped around the edges for the sake of delicate fingers.
A tiny raven is frosted inside the glass.
"What is it?" Palomir asks.
Gale shrugs. "Your ghost." And then, "By the way, where do you get your shampoo? I've been looking for that brand everywhere."
Palomir keeps the mirror shard in a drawer in his house, and it becomes just one part of a patchwork record of his history with Gale that he's oddly reluctant to throw away.
Title: Effective Exorcism for the Spiritually Challenged
Day/Theme: September 27: Chasing the metaphysical express
Series: Original
Character/Pairing: Gale, Palomir (Cake Mafia-verse)
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Palomir's got a ghost problem.
A/N: Practice for AU month, in a way - I like ghosts as a writing subject, just not as horror movie presences, and think that the potential for amusement where the restless dead are concerned is wildly underrated. PWP, totally. CRACK FIC AHOY
Gale is known for doing odd things on occasion (that is to say, on any occasion she feels like doing odd things). Even so, Palomir is caught by surprise when she casually snags him by the collar, huffs into his neck and solemnly informs him, "You smell like dead people."
The gravity of her tone is somewhat belied by her next words. "You should take a bath. You've got to get it early on, y'know."
For the next week and a half, Palomir's appearance is more impeccable than usual, and he tells himself very definitely that this is not because Gale has remarked on his grooming habits. Not. At. All.
Palomir is not by nature a superstitious man, and Gale is a highly unstable and inscrutably fond of dramatics if it looks remotely impressive, so he dismisses the sinister comment as what he perceives it to be, a slight on his personal upkeep. He can't help but feel irritated and a little genuinely betrayed, because really, Gale hasn't struck him as the type to make petty insults like this.
He's so wrapped up in his own thoughts that he doesn't think much of it when his favorite teaspoon disappears from his sugarbowl.
And when he comes back one evening to find that drawers he distinctly remembers leaving shut have been opened, he's too tired to do anything about it. Besides, in the morning, they've all been shut.
This goes on for almost two weeks.
It's on the thirteenth day, when he wakes to the feeling of something cold and heavy pressing on his chest, hypersensitive nerves prickling like chain lightning down his spine, he begins to think that there is something more than a question of questionable hygiene at hand. The invisible pressure vanishes as mysteriously as it arrives, and Palomir sits up gingerly, thinking.
Somewhat grimly, he has to conclude there is nothing to do but to ask for some help.
Gale pre-empts him before he can even open his mouth, sauntering into his cubby the minute he checks in. He feels a mixture of irritation and slight embarrassment when the girl reels back sharply as though physically struck, eyes watering as she clutches her nose. "Phew!" she gasps, fluttering a hand frantically in front of her face. "Palomir, what've you been -doing-? It's gotten worse!"
The elf looks affronted, but replies with stiff formality. "You said something about dead people before. What did you mean?"
The girl looks at him askance, then shifts her stance, feet apart and arms akimbo. "Y'really don't know?" The question is disbelieving; she's astonished beyond belief.
"I felt... something this morning," Palomir says, motivated to speak by an impulse he can't quite understand. "I thought you'd know what to do about it."
Gale's gaze has turned sharp and animal, though her thoughts are not focused. It would seem, rather, that she's considering something very far beyond the here and now. "I'll come with you after work's done," she says, her voice distant. "It looks like I'll have to do it myself." She doesn't sound too unpleased.
Not for the first time, Palomir wonders what he has gotten himself into.
---
The elf does not keep an untidy home, but even so, he feels a prickle of self-consciousness when Gale walks in behind him, and silently hopes that he hasn't inadvertently left a pair of underpants crumpled over some piece of furniture or something equally undignified. The girl doesn't seem to be in a state of mind to worry about the neatness of his apartment, though. When he turns to her, he's just in time to catch her hastily tying a paisley-patterned handkerchief over her twitching nose.
"It's even worse here," Gale grumbles, her voice muffled by the cloth. Palomir gingerly removes the fedora from his head and hangs it off the rack by the doorway, refusing to comment. The girl doesn't seem to much notice or mind, as she's already set off to poke her nose about his home, like a particularly inquisitive, oversized cat. The elf can't imagine what she's looking for, though, as he knows she's already thoroughly explored the flat on many an occasion.
Perhaps, he ponders, Gale finds a strange kind of novelty in her first invited visit.
He hears a squeal of delight and a squeaking of springs shortly after; mildly alarmed (though more concerned for the articles of furniture's well-being than the girl), Palomir rushes towards the sound, coming to a slackjawed stop in the middle of the doorway to his own room.
Gale is bouncing on his bed, giggling like a little girl, skirts flying with every bounce and giddy whooping filling the air.
"Palomir!" she yells happily, completely (to all appearances) bereft of self-consciousness. "You didn't tell me your bed bounced this well!" The sound of her bottom soundly impacting with the mattress seems to underline the statement.
"You've been holding out, you jerk! Not that I blame you," she adds, as an afterthought. "If I had digs this comfortable, I wouldn't be spreading it around either."
Gale wallows on the bed, happier than a pig in mud. Her appalling indolence transforms the clean sheets and twin-sized mattress that Palomir has not, prior to this moment, ever thought of in terms beyond 'serviceable' into a veritable pleasure palace of
The elf's mouth goes into a thin, hard line, channeling the near-heart-attack she'd given him into righteous irritation.
"Gale, get off the bed," he orders curtly. By now he's taken off the tie as well, and without its nooselike presence around his neck, he feels a little less helpless. And this is his house, in the end.
His new sense of control, though, apparently doesn't mean anything to his boss, still tie-enabled herself and forsaking bouncing in favor of wriggling on the bed like a landed catfish completely upsetting the formerly-immaculate bedspread. Gale puckers her lips and sticks her tongue out at him impishly, lying belly-up with her head tilted back to peer at him.
"Spoilsport," she accuses complacently, without any true rancor. She rolls over onto her stomach and continues. "Besides, I'm just getting comfortable. We're going to be spending most of the night on this thing, after all."
Palomir takes a moment to sort through that, eyebrows quirked. And then understanding crashes in like a hurricane.
"What?"
---
This is the most awkward situation Palomir has ever found himself in, and he's still not sure how he's gotten here.
He and Gale have wormed underneath the covers of his bed, together. Thankfully, the girl hadn't made any fuss about changing clothes or respecting privacy; in fact, while he'd opted for a looser shirt and highly informal shorts, she climbed into the bed fully clothed in her orange dress, shucking off socks and shoes on the way.
To compound to that, while they started out with their backs facing each other (and in Palomir's case, as close to the edge as he could manage), the girl's spreadeagled out in her sleep, draping a leg and an arm over Palomir, who pointedly remains on his side and refrains from rolling over. Her touch makes him itch. The thing is, the hand carelessly flung across him dangles Gale's signature bubblegum-pink gun from its half-nerveless fingers. Even if she seems asleep, Palomir doesn't want to risk startling Gale into shooting him in the kidney, or worse.
And if he'd allow himself to be completely honest, he doesn't mind the warmth and pressure of her limbs that much. Letting someone hug you is worlds different from hugging someone yourself, and with Gale, it seems, 'letting' her do anything is more of a law of nature than a choice.
Against his will, and more comfortable than he would ever admit to being, Palomir falls asleep.
He wakes up to being half-tumbled out of bed to the accompaniment of muffled gunshots, and when he opens his eyes, the afterimage of fireworks burns into his retinas.
"Missed it!" Gale yells vehemently, and he can feel her weight roll off the bed.
Palomir thinks, all in all, that this is not an auspicious start to the day.
The clock's been broken since he's come here. The display blinks a sullen red 12:00 AM from its position on the mantle, and the elf closes his eyes.
No. Definitely not.
---
"It won't go," Gale murmurs sharply, eyes wide, and she rounds on him, the proximity of her pivoting form forcing him a step back. "I told you to take a bath already!"
"I've -been- taking baths!" Palomir snaps, irritation at her less-than-generous jibing seeping through.
Gale's eyes narrow into calculating slits. "Baths?" she queries suddenly, "Or showers?"
"Ba -- showers, yes," the elf blinks at the change in topic, wondering what that has to do with anything. "Why?"
"That's the problem, then," Gale says simply, and before he can protest another word, she's grabbed him by the wrist and hauled him off towards the bathroom.
---
Palomir waits, a bit apprehensively, as the water pools into the bathtub. He and Gale are still fully clothed except for their feet; the cold tiles feel like ice against his soles. Gale watches the tub as hot water pours into it, steam wafting off the liquid and making the air difficult to breathe.
For some reason, the girl has insisted on unhitching the bathroom mirror (thankfully, it's not a medicine cabinet one) from its hooks and propping it in the middle of the doorway, reflective side facing out. Her explanation is a simple, pragmatic "Mirrors trap spirits" and Palomir hasn't the faintest idea what to say to that.
Instead, he watches while she waits for the tub to come to three-quarters full, then shuts off the water and turns to him.
"Alright," Gale announces cheerfully. "In you go!"
That is all the warning the elf gets before she seizes him by the front of his shirt and proceeds to dump him into the tub, fully clothed.
He barely has time to squawk before the water closes over his head, and distantly, he can hear the sound of the mirror shattering.
---
Palomir doesn't think of that night if he can help it, and Gale doesn't bring the subject up again. On the plus side, however, he hasn't woken up feeling like being choked ever again, and he supposes that is a good thing (and a small mercy, since it means Gale will never have to 'exorcise' him again).
It does come up once, though, when Gale silently gives him a small shard that appears to have come from a mirror, duct-taped around the edges for the sake of delicate fingers.
A tiny raven is frosted inside the glass.
"What is it?" Palomir asks.
Gale shrugs. "Your ghost." And then, "By the way, where do you get your shampoo? I've been looking for that brand everywhere."
Palomir keeps the mirror shard in a drawer in his house, and it becomes just one part of a patchwork record of his history with Gale that he's oddly reluctant to throw away.