Valerie Gray

She had already gotten into bed, and she had left the normal space for him. He gave a light exhale of relief. It seems as if she wanted him to stay. He had originally decided to sleep on the floor, but his heart pulled him into another direction.

She felt his fingers fumble for her hand as he gave her a shy smile, and after a moment of debate, she gave his hand a slight squeeze, a weak echo of the same smile. But she released his hand a moment later so she could turn over and turn out the light, and once that was done, she remained on her side, back to the ghost in her bed.

It was a frustrating one, and it felt like some sort of lose-lose test situation.

If she wanted peace and he stayed, he would irk her. If she wanted peace but he left, she might get the impression that he only wanted sex or something. If she wanted him to stay and he did stay, she might feel as if she owed him something physical in return, but if she wanted him to stay and he left, she would be hurt that he abandoned her.

God damn it.

She did say do what you want, and Thorek did want to stay. He desperately missed her company at night, mostly just being able to snuggle close to her and knowing that she was there.

She worried her lip between her teeth in hesitation. She herself wasn’t really sure what she wanted, other than sleep. While she had missed dearly the feeling of Thorek being close by, there was still that raw feeling in her chest. Trying to shake the thoughts and feeling off, Valerie cleared her throat to let him know she was done, carrying her clothes to the hamper before slipping over to the bed. 

She wasn’t sure what the look the Ghostwriter was giving her meant, but it was enough to make her uncomfortable. “Look, I can’t really do or say anything to change the way things on our side. I’m a solo hunter, and no one other than my Dad, Phantom, and the person who originally supplied my suit really knows my identity as a ghost hunter. I really doubt I’d be able to change the mindset of any of the others, particularly if things keep going the way they do.”

Unless…

Thorek glanced a bit nervously at Valerie. Would it be weird to ask? Of course, he wouldn’t mean that, but he sincerely missed having her next to him at night.

“I...” she found herself fidgeting. Words that had been said at the argument still rang in her ears, making her pale. Sure, she’d been informed she’d taken the words wrong, but still, it had cut her deeply at the time, to hear him speak of her in such a way.

And was she really ready to openly and willingly let him be that close again? She wasn’t sure. While they were trying to mend thing between them, it was neither easy nor fast. She swallowed hard, her appetite lost as she rose from the bed to toss the rest of the pizza on her plate(mostly just crust anyways) into the trash.

“Even if there are problems related to how to deal with a ghostly criminal and prisoner, trying to make our existence illegal is going to lead to a lot more problems than intended. Such laws don’t stop the strong-willed or malicious spectres from doing what they would like to and only serves to divide the two worlds further. The ones who obey the laws are then never seen in the human world or stay hidden if they have business there. Then everyone sees primarily malicious ghosts, leading to confirmation bias, that ghosts are evil.”

“And this?” Valerie held up the book, before opening it up, skimming quickly through the pages. “... This looks like it was mostly written by the Guys in White. I’m pretty sure none of these ‘laws’ were ever put up for vote. I’ve certainly never seen them written anywhere else before.” She looked back up. “You’re going on and on over how ghosts are treated? Let me put things in perspective for you.”

“There’s a lot of ghosts. A ton of them show up in Amity Park alone, and I have no idea how many crop up around the world, but let’s just focus on Amity Park. Do you know how many actual ghost hunters there are in comparison? Like, real ghost hunters?” She snorted.  “The Fentons. The Guys in White when they’re actually in town. Me... and Phantom, if you can count another ghost beating up ghosts. But honestly, it’s usually mostly me and Phantom dealing with the majority of the troublemakers.”

“So two to four people against every ghost that comes through that portal the Fentons’ have. Two to four people trying to protect the town from almost daily ghost attacks. Do you really not get it? Do you really not understand why we judge so harshly? We’re outnumbered, fighting against an enemy that really does over power us, trying to protect people who can’t fight back at all! You go on about how humans treat ghosts, conveniently forgetting that the majority of ghosts who come to our world treat humans as even worse!”

“Confirmation bias be damned, if you ghosts really did care about humans at all, if you thought of us as equals, then you’d actually police your own damn kind and prevent those kinds of ghosts from coming over! So don’t you get all high and mighty when we do the only thing we can do to protect ourselves! But no, if these supposed ‘good’ ghosts exist, they’re more than content to let the ‘bad’ ghosts come and treat humans like play-things. Toys to be used until broken and then tossed aside. You ghosts dug your own grave in the way you let your own treat us humans, and instead of building a ladder to get out you all just keep digging yourself deeper while complaining that we should be the ones offering you a hand up.”

“…The suit is technologically advanced for even modern times. A few things are moreso, like my keyboard or Clockwork’s medallions, but a suit like that doesn’t come cheap. Where’d you get it?” 

He pulled out a small, more modern-looking book, and flipping through the pages. “And, in most states, that would count as a very serious form of stalking, tracking us down like that on what is the equivalent of DNA sampling… If the human legal system even recognized any of us as people, I should say. The laws related to ghosts are disturbing in terms of the legal precedents they set.”

Her eyes narrowed as he started spouting various legal stuff at her. “You want to talk laws?” She asked, crossing her arms. “How about the fact that I wouldn’t have even known you were in town if you hadn’t used your energy to... you know... break in and enter the Library? And what about the legal ramification for ghosts who break our laws? Can’t exactly take a ghost to court for destruction of property, or assault, or murder, or anything else. Can’t exactly keep a ghost in prison either. It’d cost too much to ghost proof every prison, and it wouldn’t be safe to keep ghosts in with other prisoners. And you can’t exactly take a ghost’s ‘weapons’ away from them.”

She looked back at his question, arching an eyebrow. “My suit is capable of detecting the use of ectoplasmic energy, from even on the other side of town, and if I have a specific ecto-signature, I can narrow down the search to that one particular ghost. Any time a ghost goes invisible, or phases through something, or fires a shot, or anything like that, my suit can detect it and give me a general idea of where it happened. I knew there was a ghost in the library. But I wasn’t about to just bust in there myself and get the cops after me for breaking and entering.”

“…Though I’m still curious. I believe you’re alluding to Phantom and, though I think he’s an urchin and he has a track record of being a fucking idiot, he’s not evil like you seem to think. His obsession is with ensuring the safety of humans. He doesn’t care much about property and he’s a downright Scrooge during Christmas.

“And we usually aren’t evil, you know. Some of us just want to indulge our obsessions. The ones who go to the human world either do so because their obsession involves contact with your world or they really do not like humans. I was serious when I said I was at the library to read. My obsession is with literature and writing.” 

“Point taken,” She admitted grudgingly, eyeing him warily, “Though typically it’s not exactly something I have the luxury to concern myself over when there’s a ghost I am needing to deal with.” Despite her words, she pointedly didn’t attempt to activate her suit. Last thing she needed at the moment was for this apparently rather powerful ghost to think she was going to attack him again, and throw her back into that ‘story’.

Her anger hadn’t gone, but now it was a slow simmer rather than a boiling over rage. Part of her very much wanted to deny his words, to claim he was lying. But part of her, the part that wasn’t purely ruled by her emotions reminded her that there had been no visible damage to the library that she could see, that, despite what he had previously done, he hadn’t let her trapped in there, insisting she accept his way of thinking, and finally, the fact that lying to her now would serve little purpose. 

His frown deepened, noting how she and Danny both had a habit of glaring up at the ceiling in an attempt to glare at him when trapped in stories, as he wrote the details of the room she was in. “I am serious, that I didn’t cause that shock. Believe me, I can be very wicked when I get the urge to be so, but I didn’t do that. You’re thinking of Technus or, on a larger scale, Vortex. I deal in irony and piling on the consequences of one’s own actions.” Whatever was going on, he didn’t like it, especially since he was supposed to be in control of the situation.

“There really isn’t much to do. Just try to live your life while being the ghost amongst humans who are openly hostile to you and with hunters who will notice you and try to attack. Those who are hunters will be more prone to hunting you and those less antagonistic may not attack unless you try. I’d love to see what would happen if you found Clockwork’s analogue…

“Or better yet, how would you like to have decided to go up against those monsters, only to get flack from your own people because one of the ghosts you go after, the one who seemingly started everything and personally ruined your own life, somehow managed to pull the wool over everyone else’s eyes? That even though he still causes all sorts of damage, he’s seen as a hero, and apparently you’re the one who’s scum because you see him for what he really is!?”

“And then there’s the times you wonder if maybe you really are wrong, and you decide to give a ghost a chance. He’s just a kid, right? Surely he couldn’t be that bad. Only turns out you end up with a damn sword through the shoulder that, just a few inches lower would have caught you in the heart. And you really expect me to somehow learn that not all ghosts are bad? From you throwing me into a story where you supposedly control every aspect of it?”

“There’s no way it’s going to work, because this is all fake! These aren’t real humans, just like I’m not really a ghost. This is just you manipulating things to try and shove your own point of view down my throat!” Her trembling and aching had stopped, but now that burning sensation was starting to rise in her chest again, though she didn’t notice beyond her hand coming to her chest again to rub at her sternum. She was too caught up in angrily arguing with the ceiling.

Of course, she couldn’t respond. Not without being overheard, and she doubted that she could even get away with hushed whispers without being overheard. At the author’s instructions on how to go intangible, she shook her head, glancing down at herself. How does one just imagine themselves as being air? It didn’t make sense to her, but she did her best to do so.

At first nothing happened, and then almost as if the ground had opened up beneath her, she was suddenly falling. Of course, she didn’t actually know how to fly as a ghost either, and the shock of falling had made her lose her grip on intangibility just fast enough to hit the ground of the classroom below with a loud thud, which didn’t do her any favors.

She bit back a pained curse, curling up a moment as she tried to will the pain away, before once more willing herself to pull herself up shakily, if for no other reason than to sit in a chair rather than be sprawled on the floor.

“Act as you will, but understand you will have consequences for your actions. Understand that you’ve earned a lot of anger from many people, some of whom may have deserved some roughing up and others who haven’t. And I’d suggest you get moving.”

She didn’t even have time to finish her question, before she suddenly was engulfed in crackling electricity, painful enough that she couldn’t even cry out. It lasted only for a few seconds, but it left her body smoking and aching. She didn’t even have time to try and get up and go away, instead dragging herself up to standing using a nearby desk and sheer force of will, stumbling to the closest hiding place she could find, slipping inside and trying to shut the closet door before anyone entered.