You’re tethered to the Smosh office, though it wasn’t Smosh when you were alive. Back then, it was something quieter. A small plot of land, tenderly taken care of by an elderly man. Then the land was sold, and built on top was a studio. It was small, private, a dusty dream filled with morning light and handwritten notes. Now, a giant building lived on top of the land with its noise and laughter and ringing phones. And yet, somehow, it still feels like home.

You don’t remember how you died. Only that one day, you stopped. Breathing. Moving. Speaking. But you stayed on this mortal plane.

So you would watch. You watched the world rotate through the windows. You watched the building change hands, colors, seasons. 

In the beginning that was all you could do. Watch as new people came and went, carrying mugs and laptops and bits of their lives into the space that once held yours. You didn’t mind them. You didn’t feel much, really, just vague flickers of memory, like the echo of warmth in a long-abandoned blanket.

Then he walked in.

Spencer Agnew.

You noticed him the moment he stepped into the room. He didn’t move like the others, he didn’t demand attention. He didn’t take up space loudly. He wasn’t always making jokes or trying to be heard. He was quieter. Softer. His eyes were thoughtful, quiet in a way you understood. Something about him stirred something in you.

And so you began to watch him.

At first, it was simple. You’d hover near the ceiling when he stayed late, watching the soft blue light from his laptop paint shadows under his eyes as he worked in silence. He always looked a little tired. A little lonely. You recognized the shape of it in him.

One night, he left a mug on the counter of the kitchen, too focused on finishing editing a video to know he missed the sink entirely. It was stained, forgotten, probably destined to be left there for days.

You stared at it. You’d never moved something on purpose before. But you wanted to.

You reached for it, focusing everything you were on the smooth ceramic. It took all your strength. But slowly, slowly, it slid across the counter and settled right next to the sink.

He didn’t notice the next day. But it didn’t matter.

You felt a rush. A flicker of something that hadn’t stirred in decades: purpose.

So you did more. You began to help, just little things, gestures so small he might think he was imagining them.

You straightened a stack of papers that had scattered across his desk, organizing them subtly. You gently nudged his chair back under the table after he left, knowing he would’ve tripped on it when he came back. You tucked his forgotten hoodie, soft and crumpled, onto the arm of the couch for him to find later.

When no one was watching, you’d float close and tidy the notes on his whiteboard, straightening them and placing the schedules in chronological order. Turning off his monitor when he forgot. Plugging in his phone before it was about to die.

It took a lot of your ghostly energy, so your little things to help happened sporadically and would go unnoticed. You told yourself it didn’t matter whether he noticed or not. That doing it for him was enough.

But when he paused one day, just paused, and glanced around the break room after finding his favorite snack already laying out on top of the counter? You felt like sunlight cracked through your chest.

He didn’t say anything. But he smiled. Soft. Confused.

It made you want to do more.

Weeks passed.

You figured out how to move light things without exhausting yourself. You got better at it, more subtle and more careful. You learned the hum of his routine: when he came in, when he needed quiet, when he needed comfort. You adjusted the thermostat on cold days. Nudged his chair into the beam of sunlight in the late afternoon.

You noticed he liked Mountain Dew Kickstart, but with all his late nights he would keep forgetting to buy more. So you pushed the last can to the front of the mini fridge. He drank it the next day and murmured, “Huh. Thought I was out.”

You nearly burst.

You had never been able to help someone like this before, not even when you were alive. And now? Now you were part of his life in little ways. Hidden ways.

And it made you happy.

Eventually, you got bolder.

You pushed his keyboard back when he started dozing off at his desk. You lowered the lights when he had a headache. You turned on a calming playlist, some lo-fi and soft piano, when he seemed overwhelmed.

You started caring. Not in some abstract, ghostly way.

You tried to take care of him. Because it was the only way you could. You worried about him. About how late he stayed, about the knots in his shoulders, about how often he put others first and forgot himself entirely.

You wondered if he was lonely.

Because you were.

But you didn’t feel so alone anymore when he was here.

And sometimes, just sometimes, you let yourself think: Maybe I’m not just helping him. Maybe he’s helping me too.

Months passed.

Spencer paused more, noticing the little things you did for him around the office. No one noticed but him. And even then, he never said anything. But he saw.

The way his hoodie never ended up on the floor, even when it was completely hanging off the back of his chair. The way his spilled pens on his desk always found their way back to their cup. The way the room was always just a little more comfortable than it had been a moment before.

He started to pause longer. Smile wider.

Spencer came into work one morning to find his desk completely clean and organized. He had swore he left a mess the night before, having  an extremely long day of meetings and editing. He thought he hadn't bothered to clean, just wanting to go to bed and whispering under this breath that he would deal with it in the morning on his way out the door. 

He now stared at his spotless desk, tilted his head and muttered, “Weird.”

But he wasn’t scared.

He was curious.

That night, you sat by his desk long after he left. You hovered just above the surface, fingers ghosting over the place where his hand had been.

You ached. Not painfully. Not tragically. But in that quiet, hollow way you ached for something just out of reach.

-------------

The moment it changed forever was so simple.

Spencer was in the kitchen by the microwave, heating something up. Leftovers, maybe, you weren’t sure. You were just happy he remembered to eat. He looked tired. His hair was a mess, one shoelace undone, wearing that old sweatshirt he loved so much it was practically unraveling.

He turned toward the sink. The plate and fork he needed was already there, clean and waiting.

He hesitated.

Looked around.

No one else was in the office.

He stood there for a second, his brow furrowed. And then, so softly, like it might break something-

“…Thanks.”

Just one word.

But it shattered through you like thunder.

He didn’t even know what he was thanking. Maybe he thought it was a coincidence. Maybe he was humoring himself. But it didn’t matter.

Because he said it.

He felt you.

And you, a ghost lost to time and memory, smiled for the first time in years.

You weren’t just echoes anymore.

You were real.

To him.

After he says thank you, you don’t move for a long time.

You hover in the corner of the kitchen, soaking in the sound of his voice. You play it back in your head again and again. How he said it without sarcasm, without fear. Just softly. Like it came from somewhere quiet and sincere.

Like he meant it.

For months, you’d done things in secret. Left no proof, no trail. You’d given yourself a hundred small joys watching him smile at the results without ever asking why.

But now? Now he knows someone is here.

And you want more.

That thought terrifies you.

You don’t know if it’s allowed, ghosts wanting more. Longing for something beyond flickering lights, clean dishes, and folded sweatshirts. But it’s too late. The want is already there, blooming like ivy in the corners of your soul.

You start to leave signs. Small, gentle things. A tiny paper heart on his desk made from the corner of a Post-it note. A thumbprint in the dust that spells a crooked hi.

You think he’ll laugh. Maybe roll his eyes. Pretend it’s someone messing with him.

But he doesn’t.

He pauses. He stares. His lips curve, but not in mockery. In awe.

“Okay,” he murmurs one night. “So you’re real.”

Your breath, if you could take one, would catch.

You’ve never felt so seen.

You get braver after that.

You leave little notes. Tiny, careful things. Never too much, never enough to frighten him. A single word here. A short phrase there.

Rest.

Eat something.

You’re doing great.

He starts talking back.

Not every day. But when the office is empty, and the lights are low, and the moonlight spills through the only two windows in the office, you hear his voice.

“You’ve got good timing.”

“Are you watching over me?”

One night, he leans against the doorway, cradling a tea you left him, and says, “You’re the best coworker I’ve ever had.”

You laugh. Not out loud. But the kind that ripples through your whole being like a warm wind.

Because you are more than a ghost now. You are company. You are comfort. You are someone.

The next note you leave him next takes all your energy. You pour everything into it, into forming the words on a sheet of printer paper you drag slowly into place. Just a simple sentence in your old, looping script:

I see you too.

It sits on his keyboard when he arrives the next day.

He freezes when he sees it. You watch the color drain from his face. He picks up the note like it might vanish. His thumb traces the edge of the paper. For a moment, you think he might cry.

Then, softly, reverently, he whispers, “I believe you’re real.”

You want to reach for him. To touch his hand. To tell him that you’ve never felt more real than you do right now, standing unseen beside him in this strange little office that somehow became your shared home.

He folds the note gently and presses it to his chest.

You stay with him the rest of the night.

Not just in spirit. In feeling. In presence. In love.

Because that’s what this is now, isn’t it?

It’s love.

It’s gentle, impossible, bittersweet love. And you would stay in these walls a thousand years more if it means being near him.

-------------

You don’t remember what death felt like. But you’re starting to wonder if it felt like this-

The moment Spencer falls.

He’s alone again, editing late. You’ve settled in your usual corner, watching the glow of the screen cast soft halos over his tired face. You’re learning to read his expressions; the little lines of stress, the way his eyes dim when he’s too tired, the way his fingers pause when he forgets he hasn’t eaten.

But this time… his hand falters.

One second he’s typing, half-lidded with exhaustion, a sandwich uneaten beside him. The next, his hand seizes up. His posture wavers. You see it before he even knows something’s wrong. That subtle drop in energy. The sharp breath. The way his fingers fumble over the keys.

You float forward, immediate and desperate.

He breathes sharply and leans forward, gripping the edge of the desk. A sound escapes his throat, tight and strained.

“Spencer,” you whisper, though you know he can’t hear you.

He tries to stand from his chair. Doesn’t make it.

His knees buckle. He crumples.

You scream. No one hears. You reach for him out of instinct, but your hand passes through his arm as he collapses hard onto the carpet.

Spencer slams against the floor, his head missing the edge of the desk by inches.

You’re at his side in an instant, panic coursing through every particle of you. You can’t touch him, can’t feel his skin or press your hands against his chest or scream into the void loud enough to make anyone hear.

He’s not okay.

He’s not okay.

His breath is shallow. Quick and weak. His face, flushed minutes ago, is now pale and clammy.

You hover over him, trembling. Your edges begin to blur.

You don’t know what’s happening, only that it’s urgent. Only that if someone doesn’t come, you’ll lose him.

You can’t lose him.

You just got him.

You scan the room wildly. There has to be something. Some way to reach someone.

His phone’s too far. You can’t move anything heavy. You can’t scream loud enough for the walls to echo.

But then-

His laptop.

Open.

Slack window still up.

Angela’s name glows green in the corner.

Your energy is limited, condensed and fleeting, but desperation changes things. You hover above the trackpad and pull yourself together into a single point of energy.

This isn’t like pushing a chair or flickering a light. This is control. This is direct.

You’ve never tried anything like this before.

But love has made you bold.

The mouse jerks once. Unnatural. But it moves.

You almost lose yourself.

Then again.

Your vision flickers. The edges of your world tremble. 

You focus. Channel everything you are.

Click.

Message box open.

You slam yourself into the keys.

come now

spencer need help

please

It looks garbled. The grammar is wrong. The punctuation disappears midway. But it’s enough.

You hit enter.

You see Angela type back almost instantly.

who is this???

is this a joke?

what’s happening??

Your response is rushed. Broken.

help now

office

please

And then the light beside her name disappears.

She’s gone.

Running.

You collapse next to Spencer’s body, your energy flickering dangerously. You feel your connection to the room beginning to slip. That took everything you had, and you were fading. 

But Spencer’s breathing.

Barely.

Enough.

You whisper to him, though your voice has no weight.

“You’re going to be okay. You’re going to be okay. I promise.”

The paramedics arrive five minutes later.

Angela bursts into the office first, crying and frantic, stumbling when she sees him on the floor. Shayne is with her, shouting directions and keeping her out of the way. The ambulance’s lights reflect in the windows, painting red streaks across your vision.

Angela is sobbing. “I don’t even know who sent it,” she says to Shayne, shaking her head. 

They watch with you as paramedics lift Spencer gently, strapping him onto the gurney. Words are called out that you don’t understand. Vitals. Stabilization. Glucose levels. Dehydration. Stress.

“Geez,” someone mutters. “If we’d been just two minutes later-”

But you don’t let them finish the sentence.

Because he wasn’t two minutes too late.

You saved him.

You did.

Even when you shouldn’t have been able to. Even when death told you there was nothing more to do.

You reached across the veil. And he’s alive.

He’s alive.

You don’t have a body to cry with. No hands to wipe your face. No breath to shudder out in relief. But when they roll him past the reception desk, you follow, your essence weak and fading.

You stay in the doorway, unable to go any further but wishing you could. You watch until the ambulance turns the corner and disappears into the dark.

And then you collapse onto the floor, drained of everything you are, but relief warms you like sunlight through a dusty window.

Because he’s not gone.

Because he’ll come back.

Because Spencer is alive. 

-------------

Three days pass before Spencer returns to the office. 

He moves slower than before. He’s quiet. Each step is measured, careful. There’s still a faint shadow under his eyes, and his shoulders slump like they’re bearing the weight of something heavier than just recovery. But he’s here.

Breathing.

The air changes the moment he walks in.

Everyone gathers quickly, Shanye, Angela, Amanda, the crew from the bullpen. They welcome him back like sunlight breaking after a storm. There are jokes, half-hearted attempts at teasing, but they’re coated in a layer of concern that no one hides particularly well.

“I swear,” Shayne mutters, “when Angela called me, I thought- man, I thought we were gonna lose you.”

Angela wraps him in a hug a little too tight, eyes wet. “You scared the hell out of me.”

And then come the questions.

“How did you get a message out?” “Did you call her somehow?” “Was it a scheduled message or something?” “Did you crawl to the computer or…?”

Spencer just blinks. Tries to remember. 

He frowns faintly, brow furrowed.

“I… don’t know,” he says honestly. “I barely remember. I just… I swear someone was there.”

His voice goes soft. Almost reverent.

He glances upward, looks down the hallway, and his eyes land directly on your corner.

The one near the old filing cabinet. The place you always hovered, where the sunlight painted quiet gold against the wall. The place he’d instinctively grown to glance toward when he needed peace.

And this time, he smiles.

Something in him settles.

When the others finally drift away, back to work and editing and noise, Spencer slips into his chair. 

You’re already there. Waiting.Hovering in the corner of the room like you never left, watching with bated silence, terrified that maybe this will be the time he moves on. That the memory of that night, the miracle, has blurred like a dream.

But he turns his chair.

Not toward his screen. Not toward the door. Toward you. Right into that golden patch of afternoon light.

And he smiles again. Soft. Certain.

“I know it was you,” he says.

Not a question. A statement. A fact. 

You blink the fairy lights above him. Just once. A slow, gentle pulse.

It’s the only way you know how to say: Yes.

Later that evening, when the office empties and dusk begins to settle into the corners, Spencer doesn’t touch his laptop. He just sits. Not editing. Not working. Just... being.

The lights are low. The room hums with the last warmth of the day. A soft breeze rustles a sheet of paper on his desk. You stay nearby, coiled in the silence. 

“I don’t know how you did it,” he murmurs into the quiet. “But I’m still here.”

He reaches forward slowly. His hand, still pale with recovery, hesitates over the desk before he lays it palm-up against the wood.

“If you can… if you’re listening,” he says,  “can you touch me?”

You don’t move at first. You're afraid.

But then you float closer. Closer still.

You hover just above his hand.

You know it won’t be like skin on skin. It never will be. But maybe, if you try hard enough. You gather everything you are;  memories of sunlight on your skin, the warmth of a summer laugh, the feeling of his breath as he sleeps on the couch beneath you.

And you lower your hand.

The tips of your fingers brush his palm.

He gasps.

His breath stutters, sharp in the quiet.

“I felt that,” he whispers, stunned.

His fingers curl slightly, like he’s trying to hold the feeling in place. It’s not solid, but it’s there. Like static. Like the whisper of wind across skin. Like the warmth that lingers after someone’s hand has already let go.

He looks up and straight at you. Right through you.

But his gaze is clearer now. Sharper. Like he almost sees the shape of you.

“I don’t care what you are. Ghost, spirit, angel- I don’t care.”

His voice cracks at the edges.

“You saved my life.”

And in that moment, you want to cry. You want to scream. You want to fold yourself into him and say everything you’ve held in silence. That you watched over him. That you listened to every word. That he brought you back to life in all the ways that mattered.

But you can’t say it.

So instead, you reach again. You let your hand hover just over his chest, where his heartbeat flutters beneath the fabric.

And he places his own hand there.

They pass through each other, flesh and air. But you swear, in that moment, the space between you shimmers. It’s not a pulse. Not exactly.

It’s a promise.

You’re not alone.

Not anymore.

And neither is he.

-------------

Spencer starts leaving the lights on when he leaves the office. 

Just in case you want to see. Just in case you get lonely.

He knows it’s silly. There’s no switch in the afterlife. No bulbs to warm a ghost’s hands. But still, he can’t bring himself to leave you in the dark. Not after everything.

He brings two mugs of tea from the kitchen now. One filled with his favorite, and the other one with what he always imagines you’d choose. He sets yours down gently across from his laptop before settling in with his own. And even though he knows you can’t drink it, he still waits a beat before sipping, like he's toasting you in some invisible ritual.

It’s simple. Soft. Like he’s sharing something special with you.

He talks more now. Quiet, half-hushed confessions between midnight edits and the blue glow of his monitor. It starts with little things. Just how his day was. What he saw when he went out. How he's trying to cook more, write more, be more.

“I used to be scared of being alone,” he says one night, absentmindedly. “Not scared-scared. Just… aware of it. Too aware.”

He glances toward your corner, the one you always linger in and where the light hits gold across the carpet. And for the first time, he smiles at it without sadness.

“But I don’t feel alone anymore.”

Your energy shimmers, soft and warm, and the fairy lights in your corner flicker just slightly in response. The room sighs around him. You stay close.

You always do. 

After a month of your quiet cohabitation, your shared silence, your rituals and rhythms, Spencer begins to research.

Not obsessively.  Not out of fear.

But gently. Curiously.

Like he’s learning the language of someone he’s falling in love with.

You hover over his shoulder as he scrolls through pages titled things like residual hauntings and spiritual anchors. He takes notes on post-its in his quick, looping scrawl. He scribbles questions into a spiral-bound notebook:

Why this building? 

Why me? 

Why now? 

Sometimes he types into the search bar and deletes the words before finishing. Sometimes the questions are too big, or too honest.

You ache to answer his questions. But you’re still bound to silence.

So you respond in the ways you know.

You flip his notebook to a page he skipped. You nudge his pen toward symbols he's overlooked. And one night, you spell the word DREAMS across his keyboard with old magnetic letters from the whiteboard wall.

He sees it.

Stops.

And whispers, “Okay.”

He dreams of you for the first time a week later.

He’s asleep at his desk again. Hishead tucked into the crook of his elbow, soft breaths shifting the papers beneath him. You hover close, heart aching with a love that has no voice.

And then-

You slip in like fog through a crack in the window.

The dream isn’t the office. Not exactly.

It’s an in-between version of it. An echo of what it used to be. Before the paint. Before the furniture. The air is gold and slow, drifting with dust like snowfall. The windows are tall and cracked. The floorboards creak under memory.

You’re already there. Standing in the warmest patch of sun.

Then Spencer appears.

Lighter. Softer. Dressed in one of those worn hoodies you always fold for him. His hair curls at his temples. He looks around-

And he sees you. 

Really sees you.

He doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t speak.

He just smiles. A smile so full of wonder and warmth, it nearly breaks you.

Like you’re not just a ghost.

Like you’re a miracle.

You raise your hand.

And this time, in this dream, it connects.

He doesn’t hesitate. He laces his fingers through yours like it’s the most natural thing in the world.

“Hi,” he says, softly.

You try to say it back. But the dream is already slipping. You feel it pulling. Fading. You hold on as tightly as you can, but the light stretches and bends. Your feet lift.

His voice chases you into the dark. “Don’t go.”

The next day, Spencer stares at his mug for a long time. 

He doesn’t speak at first. Just runs a thumb around the rim, lost in thought. Then, so quietly you almost miss it-

“I saw you.”

Your energy brushes over his shoulder like wind through leaves.

“I felt you,” he says, eyes glassy with wonder. “In the dream. That was real, right? That was you.”

You answer the only way you can. You reach for the blinds and tilt them ever so slightly. Let the sunlight fall across his desk the way it had in the dream. The warmth touches his hands.

He nods. “Okay. Okay, good. I’m not losing it.”

He places both hands flat on the desk, grounding himself in something that isn't quite the real world anymore.

“You’re trying to reach me,” he says. “And I want to help you back.”

Over the next few days Spencer starts meditating. 

He lights candles. Reads dog-eared library books about crossing veils and tethering souls. He whispers to you in languages older than cities. Draws quiet circles in chalk he wipes away before anyone else arrives.

You watch it all with quiet awe.

He’s not afraid. Not even a little. And when he opens a fresh notebook and titles it Ways to Communicate, you nudge it open to the first blank page before he can.

That night, he asks gently into the silence:

“What’s your name?”

You hesitate.

It’s been so long. 

But you remember the shape of it in your mouth. The rhythm of it on paper. The way it used to sound when someone called for you in another life.

You gather your energy. Press your fingertip into the condensation on the window. And slowly, you write it.

Your name. 

Old. Beautiful. Yours.

Spencer repeats your name under his breath. Like it’s sacred. Then again, softer:

“It suits you.”

Days pass like this.

Nights blur into mornings. He finds little ways to talk to you. You leave answers in signs and shadows. He answers with notes, whispers, the way he leaves half a sandwich on the desk just in case.

You start appearing in his dreams more often, and each time is a little longer, a little brighter. You never speak. But your hands always  find his. And it feels like everything.

In one dream, he brushes your cheek with his thumb.

You cry. You didn’t know you still could. 

He leans forward.

His lips almost meet yours.

But he wakes up before you can feel it.

You do too. 

Both of you left aching with the same unspoken question.

What are we becoming?

One afternoon, he stays late just to read. Not scripts. Not edits. Just a thin book with silver foil lettering titled Crossing. The subtitle reads: When Spirits Choose to Stay. 

You curl beside him on the couch, your energy sinking into the cushions like warmth into fabric. He doesn’t look at you, but he speaks.

“I don’t think you’re stuck,” he says. “I think you chose this.”

He sets the book aside and looks at the place where you always sit.

“You stayed for me.”

You don’t answer with light or movement. You don’t need to.

He hears it in the stillness.

He blinks once, slowly. Then smiles.

“I want to stay for you, too.”

He reaches out, fingers brushing the space beside him.

“Will you keep meeting me in dreams?” he asks. “Until we figure this out?”

You press your hand to the couch cushion next to his. It dips, just slightly. Enough for him to feel. 

He exhales like it’s the first full breath he’s taken in years. And when he lays down, resting his head on the pillow you quietly fluffed behind him, his hand falls into the space where yours would be.

And when he drifts off, you go with him.

Hand in hand.

Step by step.

Somewhere between.

-------------

Spencer buys a candle shaped like a heart.

Not a soft, cutesy heart. A real one, grooved and raw, sculpted in red wax with ridges like veins, chambers twisted into shape. It’s grotesque and honest. Anatomical. Human. 

When it arrives in a cardboard box stuffed with black crinkle paper, it feels more like an offering than a purchase. A typed card inside reads:

To bind what has already been bound. To reach what already reaches back. Burn with intention. Burn with belief.

You hover beside him as he opens it, watching the way his hands hold it like it might shatter.

That night, Spencer sets it in the center of the conference table after everyone else has left. No cameras. No lights but the overhead glow and the soft flicker of flame. No audience.

Just him. 

And you.

Faint music hums from a speaker somewhere in the room, low, lilting, familiar. A song you once drifted to in his dreams. Something sad and warm.

“You don’t have to do this,” you whisper, knowing he can’t hear but hoping he feels the thought anyway.

He lights the candle. The flame curls up like a sigh.

Then he closes his eyes.

“I don’t want to just feel you in dreams,” he says, voice low and trembling. “I want to hear your voice. I want to see your face. I want to know you.”

He takes a deep breath. His hands tremble.

“I don’t care how long it lasts. One hour. One minute. I just want to give you something back.”

Your energy wraps around him, warm and shimmering.

You can feel it. The magic hums like a heartbeat.

The veil is thinning.

And then the world begins to unravel.

Color stretches at the edges of your vision. Light blooms. The walls of the office blur and twist like smoke. You feel your essence folding inward, being woven together. Condensing. Sharpening. And then-

Your knees buckle.

You hit the floor.

You hit the floor.

You feel the floor.

You feel the scratch of the rug beneath your palms. The pulse of the candlelight is warm against your cheek. The weight of the air in your lungs. Breathless, dizzy, real.

You hear the hum of the fluorescent lights above, the creak of the old table, the sound of-

“Hey- hey!”

Spencer’s voice. Closer than you’ve ever heard it.

You lift your head. Slowly. Disoriented.

And there he is. Looking right at you. 

Not through you. Not at your shimmer. At you.

His eyes go wide. His mouth parts, breath caught in his throat. He drops to his knees beside you like gravity has yanked him down.

“You’re real,” he whispers, the words crack as they leave him.

You blink. Try to move. Your fingers twitch, shaky and slow. You try to speak.

Your lips form the word.  “You…”

Spencer reaches out, but stops. His hands hover just shy of your shoulders, as if afraid you’ll vanish the second he touches you.

“You brought me back?” you whisper.

He nods. Shaky. “Can I-?”

You nod before he even finishes the question.

And when his hands land on your arms, warm, solid, grounding, you both gasp at the contact.

It’s like touching something holy.

It’s not perfect. There’s a faint shimmer around your form. You feel fragile, like blown glass or like spun sugar. But you’re here.

He pulls you into a hug before he can think better of it. And for the first time since you died, you feel held.

You fold into him. Arms curling around his back. Your face presses into his neck, and you breathe him in. He smells like citrus shampoo and the worn sweatshirt you always fold. And something else.

Home.

His arms tighten around you like if he holds you hard enough, you won’t slip away.

“I don’t know how long this will last,” he murmurs into your hair, voice thick with disbelief. 

“I know,” you whisper. 

“I’m not going to waste a second of it.”

He helps you to the couch, half-guiding, half-carrying you as your legs remember how to be real. The world feels too big. Too solid. Too beautiful. You sink into the cushions together. He doesn’t let go of your hand once.

“Tell me something about you,” he says. “Anything.”

You hesitate. You have so many lifetimes stored up. You think back to your first one, when you were actually alive. 

“I used to write poems,” you say. “Bad ones.”

He laughs like you just told him his favorite secret.

“Tell me more.”

So you do. 

You tell him about the building, about what it was before. The windows before they were replaced. The peeling wallpaper in the hallway, long painted over now. The way you used to dance barefoot on the floorboards when no one was watching, long before they were covered by concrete.

He listens with the kind of reverence people usually reserve for prayers.

And then it’s your turn.

You ask him questions. What he wanted to be when he was a kid. (A cartoonist.) What his favorite sound is. (The clink of ice in a glass.) What he thinks about when he’s editing at 3AM. 

“…Mostly you,” he says, almost shy.

Your heart stutters.

“Me?”

Spencer nods and leans closer. His thumb traces the inside of your wrist.

“Always you.”

Your body feels like it’s glowing. You don’t know how to carry this kind of love- not with hands so newly real. Not with a body made from borrowed time. But you try.

You try to hold it all.

The candle’s flame starts to flicker.

You feel the shift. A tug at your edges. A soft unraveling. 

Your vision fades around the borders. Your fingers blur. You’re slipping again.

“It’s ending,” you whisper, your voice barely holding.

Spencer shakes his head. “No. Not yet.”

You try not to cry. But tears spill anyway.

You look at him. At this beautiful, quiet boy who spoke to empty rooms and trusted there was something listening.

“I don’t want to go back to being a shadow,” you admit. “Not after this.”

“You won’t.” He grips your hands tighter. His forehead presses to yours. “I’m going to find another way. I swear it. This- this is only the beginning.”

But you both know.

The candle’s flame gutters low. 

Your fingers begin to pass through his again. The grief in his eyes is sharp. Bare.

But just before you vanish completely-

He kisses you.

A trembling, desperate, perfect kiss.

And you kiss him back.

And then you’re gone.

The office is still. Dim. The candle extinguishes with a soft hiss.

Spencer doesn’t move for a long time. He sits in the dark, hand pressed to his lips.

And slowly, softly, he smiles.

“She was warm,” he whispers.

Then he leans back, eyes closed, and lets the last curl of smoke wrap around him like your arms once did. He doesn’t cry. Not because he’s not broken, but because he isn’t afraid.

You came to him.

You held him.

You let him hold you back.

And that means something has changed.

-------------

Spencer doesn’t treat the office like an office anymore.

He moves through it like it’s sacred ground. Like every scuff on the floor and groove in the desk might hold part of you. His footsteps are softer. His routines are slower. Reverent.

He starts whispering your name when he walks in. Not every time,  but when it feels right. When the weight in his chest swells a little too much. When the air smells like dust and lilacs, like the dream where you laughed in the sun.

Sometimes, he doesn’t say anything at all. He just looks toward the corner where you always hover and nod. A quiet “I know you’re here.”

He leaves space for you everywhere. Extra room on the couch. A second chair pulled up to the desk. A mug waiting across from his, cooling slowly but lovingly untouched. Not out of hope now. Out of habit.

And you?

You haunt him. But not the way ghosts are supposed to. You don’t slam doors or rattle pipes. You don’t chill the air.

You haunt him gently.

You fog the mirror in the bathroom with your name when he brushes his teeth after late-night shoots. You flicker the hallway light twice when he’s spiraling in edits. You press your energy into the couch cushions beside him so they dip under your invisible weight, just enough for him to feel you there. 

And sometimes, when he’s half-asleep, half-lost in thought, he reaches out. His hand finds the spot where your thigh would be. He leaves it there, steady, like he's grounding himself in your presence.

You stay as long as you can.

The haunting grows stronger.

Not louder. Not scarier.

Closer.

It’s not about a ghost and a boy anymore. It’s something else. Something in-between.

Spencer dreams of you more often now, and each dream is clearer than the last. Sometimes you speak. Sometimes you don’t need to. The two of you understand each other in ways that don’t require words.

In one dream, you lie on his chest, your head tucked beneath his chin, both of you just listening.

“This is the sound I missed the most,” you whisper, your hand spread over his heart.

He kisses the crown of your head and says, “Then I’ll keep it beating for you.”

He always wakes up with his hand on his chest, right where you rested yours, like your ghost left a handprint behind.

Then, one night, Spencer does something new.

He brings a small book to the office. Leather-bound. Gold-trimmed pages. He sits at the desk and opens it carefully. On the first page, he writes in careful, deliberate ink: 

Things I Know About You

He flips to the next page and writes:

You don’t like cold floors.You always nudge my chair toward the sunlight in the afternoons.You fold my hoodies the way my mom used to.You smell like lilacs when you’re close.You laugh without sound, but the air warms when you do. You saved me.You stayed.

You hover over his shoulder, reading each line. And if your ghost-heart could beat, it would pound. You ache with a kind of love you didn’t know you could still feel, something that belongs not to memory or grief, but now.

You leave him a message that night, etched softly into the condensation of his water glass:

I will never leave you.

He sees it. Reads it. Smiles. He presses his palm to the glass, like he’s pressing it to you. And you stay there, with him, through the night.

From then on, the haunting becomes something shared.

You start to appear in photos. Only in the corners. Only when Spencer’s in frame. A shimmer of light. A shadow that doesn’t belong. 

Once, Angela looks at a selfie and frowns. “Weird blur behind you.”

Spencer grins. “She’s camera shy.”

He never explains. But he doesn’t hide you either.

And you? You start to leave more of yourself behind. Not notes, not objects.

Moments.

A chair rocking gently when he’s anxious. The exact song he needs playing the moment he touches his phone. A soft breeze across his neck when he says something kind.

It’s not control. It’s companionship.

You are no longer the ghost of a girl who died here. You are the presence of someone who stayed. And Spencer treats you as such.

One night, when the office is hushed and full of moonlight, Spencer speaks into the quiet.

“I think we’re tethered together now,” he says. He looks at the corner where you float. “Not cursed. Not stuck. Just… chosen.”

You brush your energy over the back of his neck in response.

He shivers. Smiles.

“Do you want more?” he asks.

You pause.

Because it’s not about being seen anymore. It’s about being known.

And yes, you do.

You want more.

More dreams. More kisses that almost happen. More haunting that feels like coming home. You want to be part of his life in every way you still can.

So that night, when he finally sleeps deep and safe, you drift through the office.

You press yourself into its bones.

The floorboards. The drywall. The wires and frames and vents and baseboards. The lights. The doors. The couch that cradled your borrowed body. Spencer’s desk that holds your name.

You whisper into every inch of it:

Let me stay. Let me stay. Let me stay.

In the middle of the night, Spencer wakes up with a jolt. His heart is pounding. His skin prickles. He blinks in the dark.

You’re not in the dream anymore. You’re in the room.

The lights aren’t on.

But he sees you.

A shimmer of form. A girl in a soft shadow. You’re curled into the chair by the door, legs tucked under you and your chin resting on your knees. 

You’re sitting the same way you used to sit when you were alive.

He stares.

You tilt your head.

And smile.

“Hi,” you whisper.

The word is faint. Barely there. Just a shape in the air.

But real.

Real enough to shatter something in him.

He crosses the room without thinking. Sinks to the floor at your feet like it’s a prayer.

“I missed your voice,” he says, hoarse.

You reach out. 

Your hand doesn’t pass through him this time.

It lands gently in his hair. Fingers threading through the soft curls. 

He leans into your touch like it’s instinct. Like he always knew what your hand would feel like. You don’t know how long it will last. Minutes. Seconds.

But it is lasting.

“You’re really haunting me now, huh?” he says, voice low.

You laugh, quiet and light and human.

“Yes,” you say. “And I always will.”

-------------

You try not to count the days.

The ones where Spencer touches your name in the condensation and murmurs good morning. The ones where he reads aloud from books just so you don’t feel alone. The ones where he falls asleep on the couch and your form curls up beside him, half-dream, half-memory, full heart.

But they start to blur.

And lately... they start to ache.

Not because anything is wrong. But because nothing ever really changes.

He lives in motion. And you are stillness wrapped in light.

It’s getting harder to pretend you don’t notice.

At first, it’s the little things.

He laughs less when he’s alone. He comes in a few minutes later. Leaves a few minutes earlier. Sometimes he stares at his phone for a long time before setting it down and whispering, “Later.”

It’s not distance. Not disinterest.

It’s life.

He’s alive. Still tethered to a thousand possibilities. He has improv shows, dinner plans, the occasional weekend trip to see his parents. Sometimes you watch the calendar notifications pop up on his screen, and you feel your energy pull thin.

He still comes back to the office. Still reaches for you. Still lights a candle on the desk and opens the notebook of Things I Know About You.

But you feel it.

The shift.

Time is moving.

And not for you.

Spencer tries.

Good heavens, he tries.

If anything, he leans in harder. Like he can hold time still by sheer devotion.

He starts consulting with mediums, quietly. Secretly. Not the showy kind. He finds the ones with old eyes and softer words, who talk about energy lines and rituals that respect what already exists.

You watch as he carries home books with brittle pages and ribbon bookmarks. He draws runes in chalk under the conference table. Reads aloud words older than the building itself. Always asking permission. Always looking to build, not break.

You ache as he reads aloud:

To anchor a spirit: bury an object of theirs beneath a shared threshold. To hold them here: offer them a part of your blood. To tie yourself in place: give your body to the space as they did.

And none of it works.

Your form flickers brighter when he tries. You feel the pull. But it never holds. Not for long. You never stay. 

And you know why.

Because you didn’t die for him.

And he won’t die for you.

Not yet. Not for a long, long time.

One night, Spencer curls up on the couch. His hoodie is too big. His eyes are red. He looks younger and older all at once. He tucks his knees to his chest, face turned toward your corner.

“I don’t want to live in a world where you’re just… gone again,” he whispers.

You’re already beside him. You always are. Your form rests in the cushions, curled up like memory. You press your hand to his, soft and fading.

“I’m not gone,” you whisper.

He hears it. 

Barely. 

Like a song softly flowing through a wall. A hum against his ear.

But his chest shakes. He covers your hand with his, knowing where it is without seeing it. 

“I don’t know how to let go of something I never really got to hold,” he says.

You press a kiss to his temple. Your lips don’t land. Not really. 

But he closes his eyes like they do.

-------------

The realization comes one soft afternoon in early spring.

The window’s cracked open. A breeze rolls through, warm and sweet. Spencer’s desk is scattered with papers. He’s humming, absently, tunelessly, as he looks over something.

You hover nearby. You smile.

Until you see what he’s reading.

A job listing.

Head Writer - East Coast. Full Time. Relocation required.

You hover closer. Your energy dips cold for a second. 

It’s not jealousy.

It’s knowing.

He will leave.

Not because he doesn’t love you.

Because he’s alive.

And the living are meant to go.

To grow.

To move.

To live.

You remember the sensation of it. You loved it, once. That sense of possibility. Of forward motion.

But your motion ended long ago.

You’re tethered here.

To these walls. To these floorboards. To the past. To this place.

No to him. 

And Spencer-

He belongs to the world beyond it.

That night, you don’t show up. Not really.

You dim your energy. Stay hidden in the beams and corners. Drift like smoke through the rooms he isn’t in. You can’t bring yourself to look at him.

It hurts.

Not like dying.

Worse.

Because this time, you know exactly what you’re about to lose.

You know the smell of him. The sound of his laugh. The warmth of his voice when he says your name like it’s always belonged to him.

And you know he won’t stay.

Because he shouldn’t.

Spencer notices. Of course he does.

He walks in alone. The air is heavy, too quiet.

“Hey…” he calls gently. “You here?”

Nothing moves.

No light flickers. No gentle wind. He pauses. Sets down his bag. Runs a hand through his hair.

“Are you mad at me?”

Still silence. He sits at the edge of his desk, blinking at the glass.

“I saw the job listing had moved,” he murmurs. “That’s what this is, right?”

Still, you say nothing. Not yet.

“I haven’t applied,” he says quickly. “I don’t know if I will. I- I don’t know anything right now except that every time I think about leaving, my throat closes up like I’m walking away from something I can’t ever get back.”

You flicker, weak.

Then, you gather yourself. You solidify, just enough to show yourself in the glass reflection of the cabinet behind him.

He turns toward you instantly, relief cracking through his face.

“There you are.”

You drift closer.

“I’m not mad,” you whisper.

He swallows hard. “Then why are you hiding?”

You hesitate. Then say it.

“Because I know how this ends.”

His face crumples. “Don’t.”

You reach for his hand. Press yours into it. The contact is faint. But real.

“You’re going to grow up,” you say. “You’re going to fall in love again. You’re going to leave this job, this building. You should.”

His voice is hoarse. “Not if it means leaving you.”

“You will. You’ll have to.”

You look at him with everything you have left.

“But that doesn’t mean you didn’t love me.”

His breath breaks in his chest.

He grips your hand tighter, even as it flickers, even as your form starts to thin at the edges. You’re not dying. Not again. You’re just fading.

It’s time.

You stay with him for one last hour.

You sit together, side by side on the couch, your hand barely touching his, your presence flickering warm in his lap. He talks. You listen.

He tells you the things he never had time to say. That he liked you from the first time his chair tucked itself in. That your laugh in his dreams made his heart ache. That every time he drank tea, he pretended it was a date.

You smile through the blur of your form.

You tell him things, too. That you loved the sound of his typing. That you memorized the smell of his sweatshirts. That you will never haunt anyone else, not the way you haunted him.

That you don’t regret a single second of your forever if it meant spending part of it with him.

When it’s time, you press your lips to his cheek one last time.

It lands.

It lands.

He gasps.

“Don’t forget me,” you say, even though you know he never will.

“Never,” he swears.

Your hand brushes his cheek. Your form shimmers in the glow of the dying desk lamp. You smile.

And then, like a final breath-

You’re gone.

Months pass.

The office changes. New shows. New desks. People come and go.

But Spencer never lets anyone take down the string of fairy lights you once flickered on for him.

He doesn’t talk about you often. But sometimes, just sometimes, he stops in the hallway and smiles at nothing.

And once, years later, when he brings someone new to visit, they swear they feel a warm breeze down their back. A faint whisper of laughter when they’re alone in the kitchen.

He doesn’t explain it. Just sets down two mugs of tea on the counter.

And says, softly:

“She’s still with us.”

-------------

Time passed.

As it always does.

Spencer lived a full, beautiful life.

He stayed at Smosh for years, longer than most expected. He created, laughed, grew. He made people smile even on the worst days. But he was never quite the same after you. Not in a broken way. In a changed way.

Then, he moved on; writing, performing, traveling, and living. He kept your memory quiet but never forgotten. You became the unseen rhythm of his life. A haunting, yes, but the gentle kind. A part of the melody that never played loudly but was always there, humming beneath the louder notes.

Spencer kept your memory quiet. Sacred. He never tried to replace you.

He loved again, yes, because you would’ve wanted him to. And he let himself be happy. He married. He raised a family. He said goodbye to people he loved, and found laughter again in their echoes. He was the kind of man who gave the world more than he ever asked for in return.

But even after all those years, every candle he lit, every quiet moment he sat alone with tea, it was always you he thought of.

And when the world finally grew quiet, when his hair was silver and his breath came slower, when his fingers trembled slightly as he wrote one last note in a shaky hand, he said your name aloud for the last time.

To no one.

To you.

“I’ll see you soon,” he whispered.

And then, with the kind of peace most people never get to earn, he let go.

The other side isn’t what he expected.

There are no gates. No trumpets. No crowds. No blinding light.

It’s quiet. Warm.

He finds himself in a hallway, lit by sunlight he can’t find the source of. Painted the same soft white as a memory. The air smells like lilacs and library pages. There’s music, but it’s distant and soft, like someone humming a lullaby in the next room. The floor feels cool and smooth beneath his feet, but somehow still familiar.

He walks.

No hurry. No fear.

Every step feels like coming home.

And then-

There you are.

Sitting on a wide window ledge, barefoot, legs swinging just a little, your chin resting on your knees. There’s light in your hair and starlight in your eyes. You look exactly the same and completely new, like a memory rewritten in clearer ink.

You’re just as he remembers.

But brighter. Realer.

You look up.

And you smile.

And it hits him in the chest like music. Like a favorite song he forgot he knew.

“You’re late,” you tease, your voice like sunlight on old wood, like the last soft breeze of summer.

Spencer chokes out a laugh. It breaks halfway through and turns into a sound closer to a sob. “I took the long way,” he says.

He moves toward you.

So do you.

And then you're in his arms.

For the first time in this life, or the last, or all the ones in between, fully and completely. There’s no flicker. No strain. No time limit. Just warm, solid, and perfect. Your hands on his back, his lips at your temple, the full weight of him folded around you like you were always meant to fit.

He buries his face in your neck, breath hitching.

“I missed you,” he says, voice thick.

You hold him tighter. “I never stopped waiting.”

There are no clocks here. No meetings. No deadlines. 

Just the two of you.

You and Spencer walk through fields made of light, curled up under trees that hum with memory, fall asleep on cloudless hills and wake to laughter that doesn’t need a punchline.

You talk for hours. Or maybe years. Time bends in soft, lovely ways here.

Spencer tells you everything. The people he loved. The places he saw. The books. The friends. The way he sometimes smelled lilacs for no reason. How often he looked up at a flickering light and smiled.

You cry a little. He holds you through it.

You tell him about the in-between. The quiet. The waiting. The way you watched his life bloom, even when you couldn’t be a part of it. The way you never stopped loving him, not even for a second.

He presses his forehead to yours.

“I never forgot you,” he whispers.

“You never had to,” you say. “I was always with you.”

Sometimes, you both visit that old office. Not as ghosts. As dreamers.

It’s always golden there, soft with late-afternoon sun. The couch has a permanent dip where Spencer always sat. The lights twinkle gently above, even though there’s no electricity. The two mugs are clean. The air smells like old memories and vanilla tea.

You sit together on the floor sometimes, shoulder to shoulder, just listening to the echoes of laughter through the walls.

No one’s afraid here. No one fades. No one has to let go. 

You’re not a ghost anymore. You’re not a haunting. 

You’re just you.

And Spencer, kind, complicated, loyal Spencer, is finally yours in full.

-------------

You once believed that death was the end of your story. That your chapter had closed while everyone else’s continued.

But then Spencer walked into your orbit with starlight in his eyes and made you believe in beginnings again. And suddenly, everything opened.

And now?

Now you have all of forever.

To kiss him without fading.

To hold him without breaking.

To sit beside him in the quiet, no longer waiting for the clock to run out.

To tell him, as many times as you want, that loving him was the best thing you ever did.

And the best part of eternity?

Was waiting just long enough for Spencer Agnew to walk through that door.

It still is difficult for him to touch objects sometimes, so you both will sit on the couch and read a book together and he lets you know when to turn the page or you both will take turns reading aloud.

He cannot leave the grounds. So when you need to leave for work he will escort you to the gate on the edge of the property and will be waiting to walk you back when you return. 

He will tell you that he doesn’t mind watching you eat, but you feel bad that he can’t even try it. So you print out and laminate different food dishes so you can “make” him dinner as well. It’s a small silly gesture, but it brightens up the atmosphere in the house.

Due to his passionate nature in life, he’s a bit of an empath in death. He is attuned to your emotions and can help calm you down after a bad day without you even addressing the issue. You figure it’s just part of his ghostly charm.

When you feel insecure about yourself, he will inform you of how long he’s been around and that no other person’s beauty measures up to yours.

Sometimes if you are busy or have guests over, he will just walk around reciting poetry. You will hear his words in the background and smile to yourself at the nice gesture.

You two cannot touch at first. You had to build the bond between you two first.

While he couldn’t touch you, he could leave small written letters on your nightstand for you to wake up to or cheeky messages in the fog of the bathroom mirror after a shower. 

Since he isn’t from your time period. When you need to leave, you will leave the tv or a movie on for him. He is fascinated with the new age of technology. 

He will plan a date night where you two just dance and waltz in the living room. You surprise him with an outfit from his time period and allow him to teach you a dance from when he was alive. 

After being able to become intimate, you both jump into trying new things quickly. Neither of you knows if this will last forever or not. Sometimes when things are getting intense, it’s difficult for him to stay visible. But you love it, getting fucked by an invisible source drives you crazy. 

 He loves fucking you in front of the mirror and you love letting him. You like watching your hole getting stretched.

 You know he’s cumming hard because the lights will flicker. It’s like your own little personal light show.

As much as you both like it rough, he has a passionate loving side. He will lay on top of you and hold you in his arms while he makes love to you. He will softly pull your hair and whisper sweet nothings to you, professing his love. You get lost in the ecstasy he gives you. The night ends with you having your hair a mess and a big smile on your face. 

 He will lift your dress/shirt while cooking dinner and tell you it must have been the wind

 There are a few times he will be invisible and sneak up on you. Never anything serious so as to not scare you. But you will feel a random kiss on the cheek or a cold breeze pass by.  

 He makes sure to walk the grounds after you fall asleep to watch out for intruders. He will rejoin you after he’s sure you are safe.