who_is_she | (no subject)

"You're off your game, buddy!" Mac laughs, as he scores another point on him. He's smiling until he realizes Thunder has zoned out and isn't even going to pick up the ball, which has rolled on the floor under the shuffleboard table. He chases it, hiking his pants up before bending over to lie down the floor and worm his skinny body into the crevice to fish the ball out.

"What's the matter with you?" he asks, coughing a little and blowing the dust off his shirt and glasses, "You're like, on another planet!"

Edited 2015-03-04 18:22 (UTC)

Thunder blinks at Mach's energetic bouncing around the room, realizing he'd lost track of what he was doing.

"Sorry," he says gruffly, shaking his head to focus on the game, "I've been having issues with my house. They're on my mind." He speaks in his usual deep monotone, none of the fear he was feeling about the issues showing in his face or voice.

"Trouble?" Mac asks casually, serving him the ball and bouncing it back and forth, "Like what kind? Plumbing? Leaks? I know a plumber. You know Sean, right? The janitor here? He's got a private practice, he's fixed my toilet like ten times."

He puts his arm behind him and tries to hit the ball behind his back, but misses by a long shot.

"Dammit," he says, chasing the ball across the room and grabs it before it rolls under the table this time, "Almost had it." He comes back to the table, straightening up before he serves it again.

"Or is it something else?"

Thunder keeps his focus on the ball this time, the corner of his mouth twitching up when Mac attempts an ambitious shot and misses by a mile. Playing this game with Mac was without a doubt the highlight of Thunder's day, or week, when he was too busy with work to make it. He couldn't remember ever enjoying himself so much during a game.

"No, well," Thunder starts, pausing to hit the ball back to Mac and consider his phrasing, "Electrical, partly. I just finished rewiring the whole house but I'm still having issues with it. And--" he pauses again, reluctant to cite his odd dream as an issue with the house itself, "I might have rats."

Mac raises his eyebrows when Thunder elaborates. He hesitates before saying anything; He doesn't want to come off as "overzealous" about his "hobbies," as one of his friends had described him (speaking more tactfully than she actually felt, he was sure), but anyone who knew anything knows that what Thunder had just described were major red flags.

"Oh, yeah?" he says, trying to keep a casual tone, but there's a little edge in the way he speaks, "Like flickering lights I bet, right? And the rats, you've seen them? Or seen stuff they've pooped on or chewed up?"

Thunder looks sharply at Mac at his question, and completely misses his shot, the ball bouncing past him and rolling across the floor. Thunder considers how to respond while he turns and bends down to pick up the ball.

"Yeah... Something like that. And no, I haven't found a single one, actually. I've been thinking it might be raccoons or something--a stray cat, maybe?" he sighed, shrugging and serving again, "But I have no idea how they're getting inside. It's... an old house, though."

Mac misses the ball, and this time he doesn't go after it.

"Huh," he says, trying to keep his voice even, "Don't you think that's a little weird? I mean...has any other weird stuff been happening?"

He was trying not to launch into his whole spiel; Thunder was the coolest guy he knew, and he didn't want to make a fool out of himself in front of him, but it was hard to hold back.

Thunder paused, giving Mac a shrewd look, considering whether or not to mention the dream. Thunder sighs, leaning forward onto the table and making it creak a little when he rests his weight on it.

"Well, not exactly, no. But..." he looks away, frowning, "I had this weird... dream. Like I woke up and there was... Someone standing over my bed. It was... unsettling."

Mach gasps a little, dropping his paddle and covering his mouth, then quickly lowers his hands to his sides and takes a deep breath.

"Okay," he says, pacing back and forth a little, "I need to ask you, do you, uh, believe in like...well, ghosts?"

Thunder stands up again, a little surprised by Mac's reaction. At the question, Thunder initially thinks Mac's joking, and waits for the punchline, but at the earnest, deadly serious look in Mac's eye Thunder blanches.

"I, uh, I can't say I've ever put much... thought into it," he says slowly, his surprise and disbelief showing on his face.

Mac takes his lack of an immediate shutdown as a receptive reaction, and quickly slides around the table next to him, digging into his pocket and pulling out a business card with "Mackenzie Lambert, Paranormal Investigator" along with his phone number printed on them.

"I'm not saying you gotta...you know, totally wholesale believe in this stuff, but it sounds to me like you might have a ghost problem," he says, talking quickly in his excitement, "And if you want, I can help you find out for sure, and figure out what to do about it. Let me say, though, you don't want to wait too long with symptoms like those. That doesn't sound like a particularly angry ghost yet, but you never know. It might just want to talk, it might want to tear you in half, and you're gonna want to figure out which one before it does anything more serious. If it is a ghost, I mean. Which I'm pretty sure it is, but you know. Sorry, I don't mean to freak you out or anything. Am I moving too fast? I am, aren't I. Geeze, I'm sorry, I just get so excited for a good haunt, it really gets me going. I mean...not like a sex thing! Just, it's great. It is great. It's fun!"

Thunder looks blankly at the business card, his eyebrows going up slowly as Mac babbles on. He even smiles a little towards the end of the spiel, endeared by Mac's energy and his passion. He obviously loves this kind of stuff, and it's hard not to get swept up in his enthusiasm.

Thunder had honestly never given a thought towards whether or not ghosts were real; he'd never been a big fan of TV or movies, especially horror movies with their gore and violence (he'd experienced enough of that first hand to find no pleasure in it fictionally). He couldn't help but remember how vivid his dream had been, and how sure he'd been that it wasn't a dream at all.

But really, the thing that piqued Thunder's interest more than anything else was the opportunity to spend more time with Mac. His affection for the smaller man had been growing steadily since they'd met, and was now reaching a tipping point.

"What would you do?" Thunder asks after a long, silent pause, "If I asked for your help, I mean."

"Well," Mac says, trying not to beam excitedly at how much more open Thunder seemed to this idea than any of his other friends had in the past, "Since you're my friend, I could do it for free. I've got a bunch of cameras and other surveillance equipment for monitoring spirit activity, recording messages from them and stuff. I can bring it over and see what we can find out? And don't worry, no ouija boards or anything like that, we're not going to rile them up, just listen to what they're doing already. Is there any certain time you're noticing more stuff going on in your house? Sometimes they're out more at night."

"Um, yeah, night I guess," he says, frowning a little as he considers the question, "But then, I'm usually at work or here during the day, and I don't use the lights during the day, so... I guess it would be pretty hard to tell," he says, considering the question carefully.

"It couldn't hurt to check, right?" he says with a slight smile, more a twitch of his mouth than a real smile.

Mac nods enthusiastically.

"Yeah, totally," he says, before thunder has even finished speaking, "Well, I don't have my stuff with me today, but I'll definitely bring it tomorrow, and we can head over there after I'm done with the kids. Cool. Cool! I'm really excited. And you have my number, now, so, you know. Call if there's anything else. Or if you just feel like it."

He smiles brightly, bouncing up and down slightly on the balls of his feet.

Thunder nods slowly and then stashes the business card in his wallet for safe keeping.

The next day Thunder feels nervous and excited all day, and he finds it has very little to do with the possible ghost in his house. After their time at the community center is done, Thunder finds Mac like he always does for their ping pong game, but this time he has no intention of challenging him to a game.

"Are you ready?" he asks as soon as he finds Mac, his keys jingling in his fingers.

"Yeah!" Mac says, hopping up and down a little in his excitement, "Yeah yeah! I've got all my stuff in the back of my car like I said, I can follow you to your house."

They walk out to the parking lot, where Mac climbs into his tiny red car and follows Thunder away from the community center to an old house in a nearby neighborhood. When they get there, he parks in front, and quickly exits the car and runs around to the passenger side, where he pulls out a cardboard box full of cameras and recording devices and other equipmenr. He staggers a little under the weight of it, and kicks the door shut behind him before following Thunder's car into his driveway.

"Nice place!" he says, breathing hard.

Thunder's just getting out of his truck when Mac comes up to him, almost obscured by the box he's carrying.

"Here, let me," Thunder says, easing the box out of Mac's arms and hefting it easily.

"It looks better outside than inside," Thunder says, leading the way up the walk to the front door, "I'm still fixing it up." This becomes obvious as soon as they step through the door, as the main room has no floors or walls and is home to a small collection of power tools. Thunder leads the way through another half-finished room and into the kitchen, which is mostly whole, if sparse. He sets the box on the table in the middle of the room, then steps back to give Mac access to his equipment.

"This'll probably be the best room to work from. The rest aren't as nice," he says, shrugging.

"Wow," Mac says, a little flustered as Thunder takes the box out of his hands, "You're...strong." He follows him, and once inside he starts digging in the box for the rest of the equipment, pulling out several odd-looking devices.

"This will monitor any radio disturbances," he says, holding up a box with a dial in it and plugging it into one of the outlets, "This is just a thermometer, for temperature changes. I'll set up these two cameras here, sometimes they catch images of spirits in a way our eyes can't. This is just an audio recorder, we can talk and see if we can hear anything talking back when we take the audio into my mixing software, which brings us to--"

He pulls a large, clunky laptop out of the bottom of the box and sets it on the floor.

"My laptop! We can like...watch a movie on it if things are uneventful for a while. I've got Netflix."

He spends a few minutes getting everything set up, making sure it's all in place, before plopping himself back down on the floor and rubbing his hands together excitedly before getting his recorder out.

"We'll start with this," he says, flicking it on, "All right, Thunder, is there anything you'd like to ask the spirit that may or may not be sharing this house with you?"

Thunder watches closely as Mac sets everything up, and somehow he's a little surprised when Mac doesn't pull out some kind of weird homemade special ghost tracking machine. When Mac turns the recorder on him Thunder stares at it, feeling a thread of nervousness like stage fright. He glances up at Mac before clearing his throat and trying to think of something.

"Uh, okay, well... Why didn't it--er, you," Thunder corrects, feeling kind of silly, "Like my wiring job... It was up to code. It should have worked."

Mac tries to hold it in, but bursts into quiet giggles at the phrasing of Thunder's question.

"Okay, uh," he says, scratching his nose as he tries to stop laughing, "That, or how about like..." He holds up the recorder into the air, as if it will help him get a better feed.

"Hello, to the spirit who resides in this house. I'm Mac, and you know Thunder. If you can hear me, please tell me your name." He waits for a moment, giving it time to respond and winking at Thunder before continuing.

"You've been scaring my buddy a little bit, and yeah, you, uh, messed up his wiring job. We don't want to cause any trouble, we just want to know why you did it, so we can help you if we can. Is there anything you want to tell us?"

Another long pause.

"Thank you," Mac says, before turning the recorder off, "Nice, I'll just plug it in now and we can see what we can hear."

He hooks it up to his computer, and, once the files have imported to his editing software, adjusts some of the levels and presses play, handing Thunder a pair of large headphones and putting his own over his ears.

Thunder doesn't know why Mac is laughing until he starts asking questions himself, and Thunder realizes the kind of thing Mac meant for him to ask, and he feels a little foolish. Still, it had been immensely frustrating when he'd spent a lot of time and money reworking all the electricity only to have it continue to flicker and cut out.

Thunder listens carefully between Mac's questions, unsure if he should be expecting a reply or not, and puts on the headphones when Mac hands them to him. At first, it's perfectly ordinary, Thunder's awkward phrasing and Mac laughing and then taking over. As soon as Mac starts on his second question, there's a slow build of static and the end of the question is totally drowned out by buzzing feedback. Then, just before it gets unbearably loud, a hoarse, crackling voice whispers "go away" and then cuts out, returning to the same quiet recording from before, with Mac saying thank you.

Thunder tears off his headphones and drops them onto Mac's lap, scrambling backwards a few steps.

"Jesus," he swears, with feeling, "That was... You did that, right? You... added that in or something."

"No way, I swear!" Mac says, raising his hands defensively. He's smiling wildly, both excited and scared at the same time, and he listens to the recording again.

"Man, oh man, this is strong!" he says, "I mean, that's bad, this thing is bad news, angry for sure, but wow! I almost never get a response this early on! And...geeze, look at the temperature!"

He points at the thermometer, on which the temperature has dropped a good 5 degrees.

Thunder backs into the counter, his hands going back to grip it and lean back, trying to get a hold of himself and slow down his rapidly beating heart. Despite his inner turmoil, however, his expression is still as stoic as ever.

Thunder watches Mac practically vibrate with excitement with disbelief, amazed that Mac can stay cool-headed and even happy after hearing something like that. It certainly puts Mac's earlier comment about strength in perspective.

"That's... I thought... I thought the furnace was broken," he says somewhat distantly, staring at the thermometer, "What now?"

"Well, I," Mac scratches his head, thinking over the possibilities. He wanted to stay, but he'd never dealt with a spirit like this before. It was exciting, but he felt a little out of his depth.

"I don't know, I usually deal with...less aggressive ghosts," he laughs, running his hand through his hair. "What do you want to do? We could hang around, check the cameras, see if anything else happens."

Thunder reaches behind his head and tugs anxiously at a few of his dreadlocks, suppressing the urge to just high-tail it out of there. But leaving would mean leaving Mac, and Thunder wondered how far gone he must be if he wanted to stay and face a potentially terrifying ghost just to stick around Mac. And besides, it was his house. If he left, he had nowhere to go.

"Yeah," he sighs finally, "We might as well hang around. We could... put on a movie, or something. You can pick. I've got a few lawn chairs upstairs." Thunder runs a hand over his face and starts to leave for the chairs, but something occurs to him and he pauses before he leaves the room.

"No horror."

Mac laughs, and shakes his head.

"No, no," he says, "No horror. Something light. And hey, I'll come with you. We shouldn't split up."

He follows him up the stairs, and helps him carry the lawn chairs downstairs, where they set up the chairs next to each other and put the laptop on the table. Mac picks a comedy, and they sit together, laughing, with Mac adding occasional commentary. After a while, Mac almost forgets why he's there.

Thunder is soothed by Mac's voice and the distraction of the movie, and he's enjoying spending time with Mac so much that it comes as a total surprise when suddenly the lid of the laptop slams shut. Thunder startles, his hands gripping the armrests of his chair tightly as the lights start to flicker.

"Oh god, what's happening?" Thunder says, looking around the room wildly.

Mac yelps, jumping in his seat, and he grabs his computer.

"Oh, shit!" he swears, looking wildly around the room, "Oh shit, man, okay, we gotta get out of here, this is really bad."

He puts his laptop back into the box, and goes to grab the other equipment he's set up around the room, throwing it all hastily away. He'd planned to review the footage here, but it was becoming clear that wasn't going to be an option.

"Come on!" he says urgently, grabbing Thunder's arm.

The intensity of the flickering increases as the temperature in the room drops quickly, and Thunder isn't about to argue with Mac. They dash outside the house, and when Thunder stops to grab his keys he feels a sharp pain in his hand but doesn't dwell on it before they run out of the house.

Thunder doesn't stop until Mac's car is in front of him, and when it is he puts both hands on the roof and leans his forehead against it, sucking in huge, panicked breaths. He's focusing so hard on slowing down his breathing and heart rate that he doesn't even notice his hand is sluggishly bleeding from two long scratches.

Mac all but throws his stuff into the back of his tiny car, his heart hammering, and climbs hastily into the driver's seat and parks the car.

"Get in!" he urges, "Hurry!" Once Thunder is inside, he starts the car and floors it, speeding down the street and out of the neighborhood. His eyes are wide, and he gets them to a nearby McDonald's before parking the car and putting his forehead on the steering wheel, catching his breath before looking over at Thunder.

"Oh my...God, you're bleeding," he exclaims in horror, reaching over to grab his arm and examine his injuries. They're not too bad, but he has two claw-like marks on his arm and wrist. Mac immediately takes off his jacket, and ties one of his sleeves around his wrist, his hands shaking all the while.

"Does it hurt real bad? Do you, like...do you want to get a milkshake or something?"

Thunder doesn't realize he's bleeding until Mac points it out, and when he does he just stares at it while Mac wraps his jacket around his arm. It's not until Mac asks about milkshakes that he responds.

"I could go for a milkshake," he says, his voice shaking faintly. He leaves Mac's jacket in the car and immediately goes to the condiment counter while Mac heads for the counter, grabbing a wad of napkins to hold to his bleeding wrist. He slides into a booth and sits there, utterly silent with his eyes closed and his forehead resting against his hands, which are clasped together to keep the napkins in place.

Mac returns with a milkshake in each hand, and slides slowly into the booth across from him as he sets Thunder's milkshake carefully in front of him.

"Are you...okay?" he asks carefully, still a little alarmed by the shakiness he'd heard in his voice before. He'd never seen him act clearly affected by something, and it worried him.

"I'm...sorry," Mac says, sipping his shake, "We should have left before, I didn't think..."

"No," he says, his voice steadier, "No, I'm glad you were there. That would have gone much worse if you hadn't been there." He reaches out with his injured hand to take the milkshake, sucking on the straw for a long time before he speaks again.

"You saved me."

Mac flushes, rubbing his neck.

"Nah..." he says, his voice small and somewhat shy, "I mean...I'm glad you feel like I helped, but...sheesh, I'm burning up, is it hot in here?"

He fans himself a little, and sucks down a good portion of his shake before speaking again.

"You...do you have anywhere to stay?" he asks, stirring his drink with his straw.

"No," Thunder says, lowering his hand to the table and checking under the napkins, wadding up a few soiled ones and setting them off to the far side of the table and replacing them with fresh ones.

"I can... Go to a motel for tonight. And then figure out what I'm going to do after that," he says, sounding weary and rubbing his fingers over his head, "There's no way I'm going back there. At least... Not for a few days."

"No way," Mac says immediately, then covers his mouth. He wipes his lips on his sleeve and clears his throat.

"I mean. You don't have to do that. I've got a foldout couch you can sleep on. For as long as you want to, really. I mean, my apartment's a little small, but...I don't know, I get lonely, I was hoping to get a roommate anyway. And, I mean, if you don't want to I can at least take you back and look at that scratch. They taught me some first-aid for the kids, so...I'm not a doctor, but I can...you know, take care of you."

Thunder watches Mac carefully while he speaks, and can't deny the little thrill that runs through him when Mac says I can take care of you. He considers putting up a token fight, out of politeness, but right now he just appreciates that Mac is willing to be there for him--and more than that, he just really wants to say yes.

"...Yeah, all right. That house was too big for me, anyway."

Thunder sits there quietly for a moment, sipping on his milkshake and still trying to tidy up his whirling mind. One memory comes to the forefront and sticks there, and the words are tumbling out of his mouth before he can stop them.

"I watched my partner sacrifice himself to save me right in front of me," he blurts out, wincing a little at his own lack of tact but barreling on anyways, "I was helpless, powerless to do anything. And then I lost my eye and got turned in anyways. I hate... feeling like I can't fight back. I hate that more than anything."

He falls silent, staring down at his milkshake, embarrassed that all that personal information had just fallen out of his mouth, when he'd always made a point not to discuss the real story behind his arrest with anyone.

Mac sets his drink down in surprise, his heart aching a little as Thunder speaks. There's a few moments of silence, before Mac extends his arm across the table and rests his hand over Thunder's.

"I'm...really sorry," he says, his voice a little pained, "You don't have to worry about...whatever's in that house anymore, okay? I've got your back, I'll go with you when you need to go back there, everything's gonna be okay, promise."

He gets to the bottom of his shake, the slurping sound it makes as he tries to get the last drops breaking the seriousness of the moment they were having.

"C'mon," he says, grabbing his wallet and keys, "I'm about ten minutes from here, we can get you set up on the couch and I'll check you out. Your arm. Check your arm out."

He tosses his cup at the trash and misses, and has to get up and put it into the bin before heading out the door towards his car.

Thunder follows Mac out, feeling very comforted by his words and even the energetic way he misses throwing out his cup. Thunder is quiet on the way to Mac's apartment, still holding a few napkins to his hand even though it's mostly stopped bleeding.

He follows Mac up to his apartment, slouching over slightly as shame starts to set in and he starts feeling increasingly foolish over the way he'd reacted to encountering a ghost.

Once they're inside, Mac shows him to the couch, folding it out for him. His apartment is small, with very little walking space, but it's cozy, and he's decorated it well. He plops down on the couch bed, bouncing up and down on it with his butt a few times to make sure none of the springs are busted.

"The sheets on here are clean, no one's slept on this yet," he says, grinning, "It's pretty comfortable, and the TV's right there, so you can watch stuff if you want. I'll show you how to work the remote and get you a blanket and stuff after I clean you up."

He walks over to the cabinet, rummaging around before pulling out a plastic box of medical supplies.

"Here," he says gently, sitting back down beside him and grabbing the bottle of rubbing alcohol and a cotton ball, "Show me your wrist."

He takes Thunder's hand, and holds it loosely in his lap while he treats his wound. He cleans the blood off and disinfects, before carefully dressing his wound with a bandage.

"Got you pretty good, huh?" he mutters quietly, "It's okay, though. It is okay, right? Not hurting too bad?"

Mac's hands are warm and gentle, and so comforting that when Mac speaks Thunder is almost too distracted to answer.

"Oh, uh," he says after a too long silence, shaking himself out of his reverie, "Yeah, I'm fine." When Mac is finished Thunder runs his fingers lightly over where he could still vaguely feel Mac's warmth, and it still takes him a moment to collect himself.

"Thank you, Mac, really," he says, feeling like a smitten teenager, though no evidence of that emotion shows on his face.

Mac smiles warmly, patting Thunder on the leg before hopping up. He hands Thunder the remote to the TV, and shows him how to use it briefly before heading into his bedroom. He comes back with a comforter, which, by the pattern of red cars and trains on a light blue background, looks like it was meant for a little boy in all but size, and hands it to Thunder.

"Here," Mac says, "You can use this. It's really warm. I've had it since I was a kid. It's clean, though, I swear, and it's queen sized."

Thunder takes the comforter and frowns at it a little, not because he's displeased with it but because it's the most absurdly endearing thing he's ever seen, and he has to pause and consider how far his feelings for Mac have gone if a childish comforter makes him swell with affection.

"Thank you," he says quickly, spreading the comforter out on the couch before Mac can catch onto his reaction.

He settles into the bed and turns on the TV, more for sound that anything else, and Mac settles into a nearby armchair. For a while they watch blandly interesting cooking shows and Mac makes joking commentary, until something vaguely funny happens on the screen and silence follows it. Thunder looks over to see Mac's head tipped forward and eyes closed, his chest rising and falling evenly with his breathing.

Thunder watches Mac breathing for a while, and before he knows it he's asleep, too.