#hannah writes

It’s after one of the award shows, actually, that it all comes to a head. You were there too, watching in the audience, and yeah, you look gorgeous, in your fancy outfit and your hair and makeup all done up. But you don’t look like them. Like the idols on stage, who are all so, so attractive, and hot, and sexy. And skinny. They’re all skinny. 

Still, when Baby comes back to his seat, you smile and hug him and kiss him and tell him how proud you are of him, even though you know he doesn’t really care about any of this idol stuff. At the aftershow party, you pick at the food and stick to water, hyper-aware of what everyone else is eating.

You’ve been at the party for maybe half an hour, 45 minutes when Baby grabs your hand and drags you to an empty bathroom, pushing you against the door and kissing you senseless. Well, usually he’d be kissing you senseless, but tonight you just can’t let go of your senses, and he can tell. When his hands go to your waist and you tense, he stops, pulling back to look at you.

“What’s going on?” he asks, point blank. No beating around the bush with this guy.

“Nothing.”

He stares at you. “Why are you lying?”

You frown, your arms crossed in front of you. You’re closing yourself off from him. “I’m not lying!” 

Baby just raises an eyebrow at you, unimpressed. “Do you want to go home?”

“What? No, I- I don’t want you to have to leave early because of me,” you say, shaking your head. “I’m fine, really.”

“So, you do want to go home,” he says. He knows you too well. “And you’re not fine. Come on, let’s go.”

He starts to lead you out of the bathroom, your hand in his, and you stumble after him, protesting. “Wait, Baby, no, we don’t have to go-”

“I’m getting bored,” he shrugs. “I want to go home, okay?”

He’s lying, you know that. But honestly, you don’t have it in you to argue anymore - you do want to go home. So, you let him drag you somewhere quiet and he teleports the two of you home in a cloud of pink mist. Sometimes you wish he couldn’t teleport. If you had to take a cab home, at least you’d have time to think of an excuse.

“Okay, what’s really going on?” he asks when you’re both settled in bed, and you sigh. “And don’t you dare say nothing. I’m not an idiot, I know when you’re upset or in your head about something. I’m a good boyfriend.”

You can’t help but smile at that. “You are, you’re right. I’m sorry, I just… do you ever think about how we look together?”

He smirks. “Yeah, we look good as hell together.” You roll your eyes, but he puts a hand on your thigh. “I mean it. You’re hot as fuck, and so am I.”

“Yeah, if you say so-,”

“I do say so.”

“- but sometimes I just feel so big next to you, or compared to all the other idols at these shows.”

He stares at you. A minute passes. Then another.

“Are you kidding?” he asks, and you can feel tears stinging in your eyes. Why is being vulnerable so hard? “Please tell me you’re kidding.”

When you stay silent and just shrug, not meeting his eyes, he climbs on top of the duvet, sitting in front of you, one hand on your chin so you can’t avoid his gaze.

“I fucking love your body,” he says, and you’re not used to him being this serious. “I love everything about your body. What my body looks like has nothing to do with how I feel about yours.”

You know that, technically. It’s just hard to believe, sometimes. 

“But, like, don’t you ever think about the fact that I’m heavier than you? Or that I have a chubby stomach or that my legs are like twice the size of yours?” you ask, your voice cracking as you admit to your insecurities, like you’re worried that now that you’ve mentioned them, he’ll suddenly notice them and change his mind about you.

Baby stares at you incredulously. “No.”

“No?”

“No. I’ve never thought about any of those things. Literally why would I? None of that shit matters, and whoever says it does, doesn’t deserve to get laid,” he says, and the look of genuine disgust on his face is enough to make you giggle through your tears. 

“So, you’re not going to leave me for a sexier, skinnier version of me?” you ask with a smile, already knowing the answer.

“Fuck, no. Again, why would I? You’re the one I want. And I want all of you. Anyway, a sexier version of you doesn’t exist, so, there’s that,” he says, kissing you softly. “Now, are you done being stupid? Can we have the bathroom sex we were gonna have before, now?”

“I mean, we’re in bed, so I don’t know if it still counts as bathroom sex…” you tease, and he shrugs.

Alessia had never been one for porn. Yeah, she’d watched it here and there in particularly, ahem, dry periods, but it just didn’t really do it for her. No, what she preferred was, well… it was you. 

Before you two started dating, she’d feel guilty sometimes, the way you popped into her head when she was getting off. The first few times, she’d freeze in place, willing her brain to picture something other than you in the changing room before practice, what you’d look like in the shower, or underneath her in bed. 

“Fuck,” she’d whisper to herself, face red. “What the fuck is wrong with you? Y/N doesn’t- she isn’t- fuck.”

Those first few times, she was too frustrated and embarrassed to keep going. But then you just kept appearing, the next time and the next, and after the way you’d giggled at her joke and smiled at her that day she couldn’t help but keep going, despite the guilt she felt about it.

She told you about it when you were in bed one night, a month or so after you’d started seeing each other.

“I- I have a confession,” she said, voice unusually shy. 

You rolled over from your position as the little spoon to look at her in surprise. “Yeah?”

She nodded. Even in the dim light, you could see the flush rising to her cheeks. 

“I, um, ithinkaboutyouwhenigetoffsometimes. Most times,” the words fell from her mouth in one quick breath, as if they’d been pushed out.

You let out a laugh, and she frowned slightly. “Lessi, babe, I’m not going to lie, I have no idea what you just said. One more time, a little slower?”

The blonde bit her lip. “Okay, I, I think about you, um, when I get off sometimes, well, most times.”

“Oh!” you exclaimed. This was what she was so worried about telling you? “I mean, I kinda hoped so? I’m not giving you all this for nothing,” you winked, shaking your hips with a grin. 

“No, I mean- I already used to think about you. Before we…” she ducked her head, not wanting to look you in the eye.

“Oh,” you said again, softer this time. “You did?”

She nodded again. “I’m sorry, I know it’s weird, I just-”

“Hey, no, it’s okay! I promise.” you sat up in bed and reached out, your hand soft against her cheek, encouraging her to look at you. “It’s not weird. It’s normal to fantasise about people.”

“I know, I- it just felt different this time. With you,” Alessia admitted. “But you- you don’t mind?”

“No!” you quickly reassured her. “No, not at all. God, if anything, I’m going to be riding this ego boost for months.”

She smiled at that, and you breathed a small sigh of relief at the sight. 

With a sly smile, you nudged her. “Well, now I want to hear more about these fantasies of yours. Maybe we can even recreate one or two of them, what do you think?”

Her demeanour changed as she smirked, pushing you down so she could hover above you, her hands pinning yours to the mattress. “Sounds good to me, baby.”

-----

These days, Alessia had absolutely no qualms about fantasising about you (though she much preferred the real thing). She liked to tell you about it, teasing you when she had a day off but you didn’t, sending you messages when she knew you were in the gym. She liked knowing that she was riling you up, that by the time you got home, you’d be desperate for her touch, wasting no time in taking your clothes off for her. 

And because you were never far, she would usually wait to actually get off until you were there. It just wasn’t as good as touching you, tasting you, seeing you. 

Well, you usually weren’t far. 

Until now. 

[Lessi]: Miss you x

[Y/N]: i miss you too baby x

You were away for a few days, a company that sponsored you had flown you out to Paris for a photo and video shoot with some other athletes. They’d put you up in a nice hotel, but there was a game at the weekend and Alessia had to stay behind. You’d been so busy all day that you’d barely had time to check your phone. Still, you were rarely apart for this long, and part of you ached at the empty space by your side.

Alessia knew you were busy. It was only mid-afternoon, and you’d told her the shoot was supposed to go on until evening. She knew she could message you, tease you, but you were working and she didn’t want to distract you - not too much, at least. Plus, teasing you wasn’t anywhere near as fun when she couldn’t see the effects of her teasing when you got home.

Her leg bounced as she sat on the sofa, the TV playing in the background. Her phone buzzed in her hand with an alert from Instagram, saying that you’d uploaded something to your close friends story. She smiled when she opened it - it was a mirror selfie, you in a crop top and shorts, with the caption ‘do you think they’ll notice if i just take these home with me?’. Her eyes lingered on your bare stomach, your thighs, your hips. The shorts weren’t particularly tight or revealing, but she knew what you looked like underneath. 

She shifted in place, warmth pooling in her stomach. With a sigh, she closed Instagram and opened her gallery, scrolling down to the hidden folder at the bottom. She wanted you, wanted to touch you, feel you, but… this would do, for now. 

She opened the folder to dozens, if not hundreds, of pictures. Pictures you’d sent her, pictures she’d taken of you, pictures of both of you. At first, she wasn’t even looking for anything specific, just wanted to look at you.

Stopping on a picture you’d sent her early on, her breath caught in her throat. You were just so pretty, in the lingerie you’d bought just to wear for her, the fabric hugging your body, the dark red complementing your soft skin. She bit her lip, hand slipping below the waistline of her joggers as her eyes traced the curve of your body, idly stroking herself over her underwear.

She kept scrolling, this time stopping on a picture she’d taken of you on holiday a few months ago. It was you, in bed, from the hips up, with Alessia’s thighs just visible on either side of your waist. The light was low, but she could still see the bite marks and bruises she’d left along your neck and your bare chest. You were smiling at the camera- no, you were smiling at her, your eyes looking just above the camera, and she felt an overwhelming rush of love flood through her. 

She could feel that she was getting wet, a damp patch forming on her underwear, and as she pushed the fabric aside, her phone buzzed.

[Meado]: Want to come over for dinner? Viv’s convinced you’re just sat at home moping because Y/N isn’t there

[Meado]: Wait I bet you are just sat around moping aren’t you

[Meado]: Gay

Alessia rolled her eyes, pulling her hand out of her joggers. 

[Lessi]: Am not

[Lessi]: Fine but only because I want to see Myle and Viv

[Lessi]: Be there in 20

-----

By the time you got back to the hotel, it was dark outside. The shoot was fun but tiring, and you felt out of your comfort zone, especially since you didn’t really know any of the other athletes there. 

You sent Alessia a quick selfie as you brushed your teeth and got ready for bed, wondering what the blonde was up to. The hotel bed was comfy, but it felt so empty alone, and you sat in silence for a minute, not sure what to do with yourself.

The quiet was broken by your phone vibrating obnoxiously on the bedside table, the harsh sound making you jump. You smiled when you saw the name on the facetime request, picking up immediately.

“Hi!” you said, half-whispering.

“Hey, baby,” Alessia grinned. She was in bed too, and you felt a pang of homesickness at the sight. “Why are you whispering?”

“Oh,” you laughed. “I dunno. I didn’t even realise.”

She let out a soft laugh at that, smiling fondly. “How are you? How was the shoot? I miss you.”

“I miss you, too,” you sighed. “I’m okay, just tired. The shoot was good, we did all the photos today and then we’re filming any video content tomorrow. Some promo videos and some group questions and games, I think.”

She whistled, raising an eyebrow. “My girl, the model,” she smirked. “I liked the picture you posted earlier. You looked good.”

You blushed. “How are you? What did you get up to today?”

“I’m okay,” she shrugged. “Training, obviously, then I hung out at home for a bit and then went to Beth’s and Viv’s for dinner. Apparently, Viv thought I’d just be sat at home alone, moping.”

“And, were you?” you asked with a grin.

“Well…” the blonde looked smug. “I wasn’t moping.”

“No?”

“No, I was having a little more fun than that,” she said, smiling wolfishly. 

“Oh,” you stammered, feeling blood rise to your cheeks and warmth pooling in your core. “Yeah?”

“Mhm,” she nodded. “I was looking at pictures of you. You in that red lingerie, remember those?”

You nodded, not trusting yourself to speak.

“You look so pretty in those pictures, baby. In that lingerie, like a present, waiting for me to take off the wrapping paper,” Alessia’s voice was low, teasing, as she waited for your response.

“I- um, I-,” you were too flustered to form a sentence. It wasn’t that it was unusual for Alessia to talk to you like this, far from it, but you hadn’t really done it like this before, on the phone or on a video call. 

“You wanna hear more?” she asked, laughing when you started nodding before she’d even finished the question. “Then I was looking at the pictures I took of you a couple months ago, when we went to Greece, remember? From that one night, after we’d been at the beach all day and gone to that tiny bar in the evening, when you’d been teasing me, wearing that skimpy bikini, and that dress, the sheer one. Remember that night, baby? When I made you come, what, six times, I think?”

You swallowed. “Uh-huh,” you said softly. You remembered the way her fingers had pressed into your hips when she pushed you to the bed, the hunger in her eyes as she took off your dress. The feeling of her mouth on your clit, her fingers sliding inside you, filling you up, making you gasp and moan and beg. Your first orgasm that night crashing through you, the sound of Alessia’s voice as she gently told you ‘Just one more, for me? You can take another, can’t you baby?’.

Even through the slightly pixelated video, you could see Alessia’s eyes watching you, dark with lust, and you knew she was thinking about the same things.

Shifting in place, increasingly aware of the warmth between your legs, you let out a small whine. “Lessi, this isn’t fair.”

“Aw, why not, baby?” she asked, voice nonchalant, and you whined again.

“Because- because I want you to touch me, and you’re there and I’m here!” you sputtered, frustrated. 

“Hmm,” she hummed, then sighed. “Guess we better just go to bed then.”

“Wha- no! That’s not what I meant!” you insisted, unable to ignore the way your clit was throbbing, aching to be touched.

“No?” she asked, smirking.

“No,” you huffed.

“Well, since I can’t touch you, I guess you’ll just have to do it yourself, won’t you?” the blonde said with a shrug. “Do you wanna do that for me, baby?”

You felt your face flush even more but nodded, biting your lip. 

Alessia felt a flutter of relief in her chest. Even though she knew you’d agree to the idea, a small part of her had still been nervous about asking. You couldn’t see it on the call, but her hand had worked its way down her body, easily sliding beneath her underwear, one finger lazily circling her clit.

Unknowingly, you mirrored her actions, and the gasp you let out when you touched the arousal pooled between your legs alerted her to what you were doing.

“Can you tell me what you’re doing, baby?” she asked softly.

“I- um, I’m touching myself,” you said, voice shy and quiet. 

“Yeah? Can you tell me how?”

“I’m touching my clit,” you told her. “It, it feels good.” 

“Good girl,” she said, letting out a sigh. You realised that she was touching herself too, the way you were. It sent a jolt to your core, and you had to bite back a moan at the thought, imagining her lying there, touching herself to the thought of you.

“Fuck,” you whispered. “What- what are you thinking about?”

“I thought I was the one leading this,” she grinned, but laid back, her eyes fluttering closed. “I’m thinking about you, baby. Thinking about what I’d do if you were here, how I’d touch you. How pretty you’d look between my legs.”

You couldn’t help but let out a soft moan, rubbing your clit faster. You almost wished you’d brought some toys with you, but you hadn’t expected your trip to go like this. Alessia’s fingers slipped further, dipping between her legs, her breath catching, and you watched her throat bob as she swallowed. When you moaned, her eyes opened, raking over your flushed face, your bottom lip red from how hard you’d been biting it to try and stay quiet.

“I want you to touch yourself how I touch you,” she said, her voice quiet but confident. “The way I fuck you. Imagine it’s my fingers inside you.”

Whimpering, you did as she asked, two fingers easily sliding inside your throbbing core. Your back arched at the sensation, head falling back, and Alessia let out a moan as she watched. 

“You’re doin’ so well for me, baby,” she murmured. “Wish I was there with you, wish I could touch you, feel how wet you are. Bet you’re takin’ those fingers so easily, aren’t you, baby?”

You nodded, eyes closed as you pictured Alessia touching you. She watched as your brow furrowed slightly, a telltale sign that you were getting close. She was getting close too, the circles on her clit getting faster as she watched you get yourself off to the thought of her.

“I bet you’d let me do anything I wanted to you right now,” her voice was breathy as she tried not to give away how close she was getting, wanting to focus on you. “Let me fuck you however I wanted, as long as you get to come at the end, isn’t that right, pretty girl? I think you should add another finger.”

You let out a broken moan as you fucked yourself, the third finger sliding in just as easily as the other two. Your fingers didn’t feel as good as hers - hers were longer, made you feel more full - but they’d do. The way you stretched around your fingers felt so good you could cry, and as you got closer to the edge you propped your phone up against the other pillow, using the hand that had been holding the phone to rub your clit.

“Fuck, you look so good, doing whatever I ask you to,” she moaned, biting back a whine of her own as she tried to fight off her rapidly approaching orgasm. She wanted you to come first, wanted to see you unravel, watch the tension leave your face. “You close, baby?”

“Y- yeah, ‘m close, I- fuck, Lessi, baby, please,” you babbled, too far gone to think straight, desperate for relief. 

“Okay, darling, since you asked so nicely, can you come for me?” she asked, and watched, enraptured, as you came, back arching, mouth open in a silent gasp as your core clenched around your fingers. She swore under her breath, and you opened your eyes just in time to see her sink into the bed, her body tensing then relaxing as she came, and you couldn’t help but feel a sense of pride that she’d gotten off watching you, thinking about you.

“Fuck,” you said, voice hoarse. “That was… fuck.”

“Yeah,” she nodded, a satisfied smile on her face. 

“Not as good as the real thing, though,” you giggled, and she grinned.

A set of coordinates, hastily handwritten on what seems to be a very average, very human Post-it note, taped to the bottom of the parchment, as if they were added as an afterthought.

Maddie thumbs the Post-it note. Why the coordinates weren’t included in the original invitation is beyond her, and she’s not sure whether to feel appreciative that the king and his staff at least remembered to include them at all or offended that they hadn’t been included in the first place. 

Part of her still wonders if the whole thing is a ruse, if the coordinates lead to some trap. It’s a possibility that she and Jack had debated heatedly for days. She had been far more inclined to see it as a trap, but Jack had reasoned that any ghost calling himself a High King would probably just attack them outright rather than going through an elaborate charade such as this. Ghosts are far from primitive creatures, they know, but Jack too pointed out that with how important power (real or perceived) is to a ghost’s social standing, any ghost worth their salt is far more likely to make a public display of attacking them if that is what he wants, simply for the free advertisement of his power.

Maddie can’t really argue with that logic.

Plus, she can’t deny her rabid curiosity about the whole ordeal. An invitation such as this is a far cry from the M.O. of the ghost that kidnapped Amity Park to the Ghost Zone once, the one who also called himself a king. This is clearly someone else’s work, and though she’ll never admit it out loud, she’s dying to know whose it is. Not to mention the intrigue surrounding the whole concept of the Ghost Zone having a High King. Is it a true king? Merely a figurehead? A ghost who has simply declared themselves king with no real political power? Is it a title handed down or won?

Her mind drifts to Vlad. In college, she, Jack, and Vlad had balanced each other out well when it came to their studies on ghosts. She was the biochemist. Jack was the engineer. Vlad was, for lack of a better term, the anthropologist. He’d always been fascinated with the history and culture of ghosts, the side of ecto-science she and Jack had never taken as much interest in. She wonders if he still holds that interest, or if he happens to know anything about the apparent ghost political hierarchy.

Maybe she should’ve asked. 

“Mads, look.”

Jack’s warm voice startles her out of her thoughts. She glances up to where he’s sitting beside her in the pilot’s seat, navigating them through the Zone with a grin on his face. A burst of affection floods her chest. He’s worn that grin ever since they got up this morning; his excitement over entering the Ghost Zone for the first time (aside from the aforementioned mass kidnapping) is not easily contained, and something about it reminds Maddie of why she fell in love with him in the first place.

He catches her watching him, and the grin widens into a laugh. “No, not at me, look out there,” he says with all the enthusiasm of a child on Christmas morning.

She looks out the front window, where he’s pointed with his head, and her stomach does a funny little swoop as she spots a large palace looming ahead of them. 

Even if they hadn’t had the coordinates, Maddie knows she would’ve been able to instantly peg this palace as the Ghost King’s. Inexplicably, she can feel its presence, even from within the Specter Speeder. Cold and commanding, like a glacier, broadcasting far and wide that this is the lair of a truly powerful ghost, every bit befitting a king. She wonders what it must feel like to an average ghost, if its aura is strong enough to be perceived by a human like herself.

Strangely, though, as her eyes rove over the black stone adorned in something that sparkles in the light - glass? Ice? - she also gets a sense of security, of ease. Like entering her house after fighting through the snow and cold. The idea itself unsettles her, the fact that a ghost’s lair’s aura can have this sort of profound effect, but the effect itself is too overwhelming for the anxiety to dominate.

It’s a bizarre feeling to have to sit with, nonetheless.

“Huh,” Jack says as he begins their descent.

“What’s that?”

“Do you think they know we’re coming?”

Maddie hums. “I would expect so. Why?”

“There’s only one guard.”

Maddie blinks, then adjusts her gaze. Sure enough, the entrance to the castle is staffed by a single guard. Not that she had been expecting a welcoming parade, of course, but she can’t wrap her head around why a king would leave his castle so defenseless, especially if he really is expecting them.

“Maybe they’re all on their lunch?” Jack cracks a grin at his own joke, and Maddie can hear the echo of her kids’ groans in her head. 

“They could be hiding,” Maddie points out. “Or invisible.”

“Radar’s only picking up the one.”

The guard has noticed their approach. She takes some solace in the fact that it doesn’t immediately prepare an attack, or that hundreds of other guards don’t suddenly appear out of the woodwork.

“Just take us in gently, sweetie,” she says. Her fists begin to tighten until she remembers that she’s still holding the king’s invitation. Swallowing, she smooths it out and stares at the king’s seal. “We don’t know what we’re walking into.”

____________________________________________________________

It’s nearly fifteen minutes after they land that they finally exit the Specter Speeder. Putting on the safety gear they had brought in such a tiny space proved to be more difficult than they’d expected, but it was necessary. The arrival of the king’s invitation had left them little time to determine if the atmosphere of the Ghost Zone was habitable for humans (how they had neglected to do this research for nearly three years, Maddie couldn’t fathom), and so precautions had to be taken. 

Oxygen masks and tanks, of course. Bulkier HAZMAT suits over their standard ecto-resistant jumpsuits. Special goggles, jetpacks for potential low-gravity travel, a body cam for each of them to record everything. Oddly enough, it had been Jack who had wanted to bring more equipment for data collection, but Maddie had nixed it due to how difficult it already was to wear everything. 

And then, last but not least, their weapons. Maddie had been unsure why she felt such trepidation as she attached her staff and two ecto-blasters to her hip, but it was enough to cause her to nearly drop the staff.

Maybe she was simply hoping she won’t have to use them.

Now, though, as she and Jack near the castle, she eyes the spear strapped to the guard’s back. The tip glints wickedly, and even though it’s a ghost’s weapon, she somehow knows it can hurt her just as easily as a ghost.

Being prepared against these threats is just good practice, she tells herself.

“State your name and your business,” the guard says the moment they’re within hearing range.

Maddie breathes in deeply. The artificial air in her mask leaves her nose feeling dry. “I am Maddie Fenton,” she says. She tries to keep her voice confident, but she’s unsure if it’s coming across. “This is my husband, Jack Fenton. We were invited by your king to come here today.”

The guard glances over each of them in turn. “You will remove your equipment and surrender all weapons before entering the palace,” they say, a haughty air to their voice.

Although she can’t see it, Maddie can sense Jack opening his mouth to respond. She cuts him off with a raise of her hand, quick and gentle. She loves Jack to the ends of the Earth and back - boisterousness and all - but these are uncharted waters. One misspoken word could potentially spell out disaster for humankind.

“We were told our weapons were welcome,” Maddie says to the guard, careful to keep her voice as even as possible. “It said so in the invitation.” Slowly, purposefully, she reaches into her pocket and pulls out the parchment, extending it to the guard.

The guard snatches it out of her hand, regarding her with a disdainful look before examining it. She has half a mind to snatch it back. Who is this ghost to go around treating her like scum of the earth?

Instead, she curls her hand into a tight fist and forces herself to even her breath. This isn’t even close to being the same as confronting the ghosts in Amity Park. For all intents and purposes, she and Jack are in enemy territory, on the turf of supposedly the most powerful ghost of them all. The two of them may have a reputation for being trigger-happy, but she’s not so stupid as to pick a fight she knows she’ll lose.

As much as it sickens her to admit that she knows she’ll lose against even someone like the Ghost King.

The guard’s frown deepens as they run a finger over the king’s seal. Maddie watches in wonder as a tiny aurora shimmers to life above the seal before evaporating into the ambient ectoplasm. The guard looks nearly as surprised.

“This does appear to be authentic,” they murmur to themselves. Glancing back up at her and Jack, their expression darkens again. “Still, I cannot in good conscience allow you into the palace with potential threats. I am the captain of the royal guard. The safety of His Majesty, his palace, and all who reside within it are my utmost priority. I will not allow anything to endanger them.”

“But surely you’re bound to follow your king’s orders,” Maddie argues. “You said so yourself that the invitation is authentic. That means he’s already said that we can bring our weapons in. You wouldn’t want to disobey him, would you?”

“The scribe wrote that your weapons were permitted. That fool couldn’t even be bothered to remember to include directions.” The guard flicks the Post-it note. “I trust his words far less than His Majesty’s.”

“It still had to have come from the king! Please, we’re not trying to be difficult. We just don’t understand why we’d be lied to like this.” Because you’re all ghosts, the enraged part of her wants to add, but she bites her tongue.

For the briefest of moments, the guard’s expression seems to soften the slightest bit, but the moment is so fleeting, Maddie is left wondering if she imagined it.

“If it is His Majesty’s prerogative,” the guard begins slowly, “then he may choose to allow you your weapons. However, it will only be after I receive his explicit instructions, and after I and my staff have been able to conduct a thorough examination of the weapons and ensure they will not pose a significant threat.”

Maddie exhales slowly. “Fine,” she bites out. “We can surrender most of our weapons.” At this point, as much as her instincts are screaming at her, she doesn’t care. She doesn’t feel like wasting her time arguing with some ghost that was never going to listen to her in the first place. A twinge of annoyance burns through her chest, wondering if all of the king’s guests get treated like second-class citizens.

Besides, as loath as she is to make the concession, they were never going to be allowed in with guns blazing - invitation or no - and while she would much prefer the security of a blaster on her hip, she’s too intelligent of a woman to ignore the politics of it.

Because that’s really what this boils down to, doesn’t it? A political meeting.

Distantly, she wonders why the king chose to summon her and Jack. Surely, an actual leader in the human world would’ve been a better choice. As much as she doesn’t like the man, Vlad would’ve been much more ideal, having both the political power as mayor of Amity Park and the expertise on ghosts necessary to tangle with the ghost monarchy of all things.

So why choose them?

“We can’t remove all of our weapons, though,” she continues, trying to bring her voice back to something less hostile. “We have some built into our jumpsuits. And we can’t remove our other equipment. It keeps us alive.” She tries not to cringe at her poor word choice. “We haven’t had the chance to determine if the Ghost Zone’s environment and atmosphere are hospitable for humans or not.”

The ghost glares down at them, their tail lashing back and forth. “I assure you, you are not the first humans to enter the Realms and live to tell the tale,” they say with a sniff, “and even if you were, His Majesty would not allow you to perish so easily.”

“Wait,” Jack says before Maddie can stop him. “Does that mean he can alter the Ghost Zone’s environment at will? Or just the environment around the palace? Does he -”

“Jack,” Maddie says at the same time the guard says, “Perhaps these questions are best left to His Majesty himself.”

Maddie can picture Jack’s crestfallen face. He has always been the more outwardly inquisitive between them, though Maddie can’t deny her own fascination with the concept of the Ghost King’s abilities. 

A time and a place, Maddie, she reminds herself.

She tries not to think about how if the king can make the environment safe for them, he can just as easily turn and make it deadly.

“At any rate,” she says, cutting into the tense silence that has settled over them all, “how can we be sure we won’t suffocate the minute we take off these masks? Even if you say other humans have been here…” She lets her sentence hang unfinished. She’s not exactly sure how she would have ended it anyway.

The guard sighs heavily, and a spark of interest flits through Maddie’s head as she wonders how they are able to do so without lungs. “You will simply have to take His Majesty’s word for it.”

His word. Not the guard’s.

She finds the distinction interesting.

“Well…” She shrugs helplessly. “What are we supposed to do then? We’ll have to surrender our jumpsuits to meet your terms, but we can’t exactly meet the king without any clothes.”

Beside her, Jack chokes on a laugh, but thankfully doesn’t say anything.

The guard seems to consider this for a moment. “I believe we can accommodate for that.”

____________________________________________________________

Nearly an hour later, Maddie finds herself pacing back and forth in the sitting room she and Jack have been brought to. The palace staff had provided them with simple linen garments to wear in lieu of their jumpsuits. “Garments” might be too generous of a term; it’s clear they were thrown together on an extremely short notice, held together with haphazard stitches and maybe just the barest hint of ghost magic. Maddie feels more like she’s been wrapped in a bundle of fabric than actually dressed.

Her humiliation is not helped in the slightest by how the king’s staff treated her and Jack as they helped them and brought them to the room. There was, of course, the guard, who continued to treat them like scum of the Earth. The seamstress who brought them the clothes, however, had regarded them with enormously wide, unblinking eyes and only spoken to them in a series of squeaks and whimpers, giving Maddie the impression that maybe the girl had been a mouse in life. And then there had been the servants all throughout the halls, gasping at them and leaning in to whisper to each other heatedly, as if she and Jack were celebrities. 

Or, perhaps more accurately, exotic creatures. She doesn’t imagine that these ghosts see humans too often.

Most frustratingly about the whole situation, though, is that none of this - the invitation, the unpreparedness, the staff’s treatment of them, even the halls of the palace itself - has given her any sort of indication as to who the Ghost King is, or what kind of ghost he will be when they meet him. It’s like trying to put together a puzzle, she thinks, but the pieces are all from different puzzles. For someone like Maddie, who prefers concrete data to the unknown, it’s a nightmare.

Not to mention the idea of going blindly into a potentially hostile situation terrifies her.

Not that she’ll ever admit it out loud.

The door bangs open, startling Maddie out of her thoughts and Jack out of his seat. The guard who greeted them floats in the doorway. Without their helmet on, she can see that they have a third, milky eye in the center of their forehead. Distantly, she wonders why there’s no opening for it in the helmet.

“His Majesty will see you now,” the guard says curtly, gesturing for them to follow.

The trip to the throne room is short, but somehow they still encounter a trio of what Maddie assumes to be maids. She rolls her eyes as they too watch them with wide eyes before bending in close to each other, whispering hurriedly.

“I can’t believe he actually…” one says.

“... think they’ll attack their own…” another is saying.

“... fleshier than he is,” the third adds rather unhelpfully.

Maddie’s not sure what to make of the conversation. Their own what?

“Mads.”

Too late, she realizes she’s stopped in the middle of the hallway and is staring at the maids. Jack and the guard are ahead of her, watching her expectantly. Jack looks like he wants to ask her something, but strangely enough, he stays quiet.

Blushing furiously and pushing the conversation out of her head, Maddie scurries back to Jack’s side.

____________________________________________________________

The throne room looks as if it had been plucked right from a fairytale. It’s done in a dark, ashy marble, complete with a long carpet and thick curtains in deep blue, trimmed with silver. Tall pillars line the sides of the room, each wrapped in a spiraling pattern of frost and decorated with a black banner stamped with the king’s seal. A stained glass window at the back of the room, behind the throne, filters light through its panes, throwing prismatic blues, greens, and purples around the room.

The throne itself sits on a short dais, and even Maddie can appreciate the workmanship that has clearly gone into it. The entire throne is made of crystalline ice, almost as if it was carved straight from a glacier. Threads of bright green ectoplasm are embedded within it, creating intricate, abstract patterns and giving it the illusion of a glow. A plush pillow rests on the seat, done in the same blue and silver fabric as the curtains.

“Maddie,” Jack whispers with a nudge, “look up.”

She does, and an involuntary gasp tears itself from her throat. Where she had expected a ceiling, perhaps like she’d find in an old cathedral, there is only the expanse of a night sky. Stars twinkle back at her, and she’s easily able to identify some of the constellations. The Big Dipper, of course, with Polaris in its glory, and over there she spots Orion. It’s only thanks to Danny and his love for the stars that she’s able to realize that she’d be able to see these same constellations above her roof this time of the year. 

It’s a fascinating decorating choice, she thinks, for the Ghost King to recreate Earth’s night sky in his throne room. Is it a deliberate choice? Is it a memory of the life he left behind? Is it simply just an appreciation for a sky that’s not ectoplasm?

A chill runs down her spine, and not just because she can feel the cold radiating off the throne. A realization has just hit her.

How powerful of a ghost must the king be to create such a perfect replica? To make her doubt for even a second that she never left Earth?

The stars above sway as a wave of dizziness overcomes her.

It’s only when Jack reaches out and gently pulls her back onto the long carpet that she looks away. Her face burns in embarrassment as she realizes she had been so lost in thought that she’d begun to wander aimlessly. Thankfully, if the guard notices, they don’t say anything about it.

Still though, she berates herself. She can’t afford to lose her focus. Not here. Not this deep in enemy territory. Not in the middle of the lair of the most powerful ghost in existence.

Oh God, she thinks as her stomach drops. Suddenly, the guard leading them down to the throne feels more like an executioner dragging them to the gallows. How could she have allowed them to give up their weapons so easily? How could she have let them be stripped of their defenses and led like lambs to a slaughter? This is the Ghost King. She and Jack have threatened and hunted his subjects time and again. Any self-respecting leader isn’t going to let that slide so easily.

Let alone a ghost.

“Hey.” Jack’s broad hand slips around hers, and she instinctively grips it tightly. “You’re overthinking things,” he chides quietly, but there’s still a light air to his voice.

“We shouldn’t have come.” It’s hard to keep her voice from shaking, especially as the air begins to grow bitingly cold as they near the throne. “He’s going to kill us. Or-or throw us in the dungeons. Or something. We’ll never get out of here. We’ll never see Jazz and Danny again. We -”

“Maddie. Look at me.”

She turns her head to look into his eyes, and despite her rampaging anxiety, the sight of the pure warmth and trust in his deep blue eyes grounds her, even if just a bit. Jack has always been the steadfast one between them. She knows that to an outsider, it seems as if she’s the one always pulling him back down into reality, but she thinks that he’s pulled her back up into reality just as often, if not more. It’s just one of the reasons she fell in love with him, one of the reasons she thinks they’re as strong as they are.

“We went through this,” Jack is saying, his tone devoid of any exasperation. He squeezes her hand. “If he wanted to hurt us, he would’ve just come and done it. He wouldn’t have sent an invitation saying that we could bring our weapons. I’m sure whatever he wants us here for can’t be that bad.” Ahead, the guard grunts, but doesn’t say anything.

“We still don’t know what we’re dealing with,” Maddie says. They come to a stop in front of the dais, and somewhere from the side of the room, an attendant flits over to the guard. The two begin speaking in hushed tones, in a language she can’t understand. Still, she watches them warily as she continues speaking. “We shouldn’t have come into this so blind.”

Jack’s brows furrow just the slightest bit. The attendant gives the guard a quick bow - nothing more than a dip - and flits back from where she came.

“It’ll be okay,” Jack says. He squeezes her hand again. “We’ll figure it out together. I know we will.”

Maddie opens her mouth to respond, but the guard begins speaking before she can.

“Presenting His Majesty,” they begin in a booming voice that reverberates against the marble, throughout the entire room, “the Keeper of Gateways, Pariah’s Bane, the Twice-Born -”

A door opens from the side wing, interrupting the guard. “Rowan, chill out,” a new voice says with a light laugh. “I’ve told you, you really don’t have to do this every time you introduce me.”

Maddie’s blood runs colder than the ice on the throne.

“Danny?” The name spills from her mouth before she can stop it. She claps a hand over her mouth as the guard, presumably Rowan, fixes her with a heated glare.

To be fair, she’s not sure if she would’ve been able to stop herself if she’d tried. A scientist and huntress she may be, but before that, she is a mother, and a mother always recognizes her own children.

And that voice was undeniably her son’s.

Her mind reels. It makes no sense. How is he here? In the Ghost Zone? In the Ghost King’s throne room? Why is he here? Addressing a ghost like an old friend? What does -

The flurry of confusion screeches to a halt, though, when a figure steps out from behind a curtain, and the rug is pulled out from under her a second time.

A thick mop of snow white hair. Electric green eyes that betray a bewilderment similar to her own. An insignia emblazoned proudly across his chest.

Maddie relaxes, but only marginally. In the midst of a world of unfamiliarity, the sight of Phantom, someone she knows all too well, is begrudgingly soothing. She’s not happy to see him, not by a long shot, but she feels a little less out of her depth. Even if things involving Phantom tend to veer towards disaster, and even if his presence in the Ghost King’s throne room is unsettling at best.

The minimal relief is short-lived, however, as she registers more in regards to his appearance. Namely the ring on his middle finger with a stone that matches the ice of the throne. And the cape draped around his shoulders with a collar of fluff and an adornment of stars. And the crown nestled in his hair, also seemingly made of ice but shimmering with the ever-shifting lights of the borealis.

Her stomach drops to her feet. 

The glow of orange screens burned into his vision, the beginnings of a migraine brewing behind his eyes. Miguel’s eyes narrowed at the screen, watching as you take down a villain in your dimension. You moved with grace, tying the villain up in your webs with ease, before turning them into the police. He mentally noted some skills that you could work on, like becoming more aware of the blindspot you had on your left side or cutting back on the quick quips that riled up the villain even more. Nevertheless, he hummed in approval, clicking off the video. He was in view of another window this time; you as you exited your apartment’s back window in your Spider suit. He gritted his teeth; you treated your job as Earth-799’s Spider-Person with such carelessness, such negligence. Yes, you had a good skill set that could become great with more work, more practice, but the indifference you had about concealing your identity irked him. Your mask only covered half your face, for God’s sake, and your hair wasn’t covered at all. Was this a game to you?

“You’re going to tear a chunk of that desk off again,” Lyla said, flickering above his shoulder. He grunted, looking down to see the talons extended from the pads of his fingers sinking into the material of the desk. He quickly yanked his hands off the desk, crossing his arms over his chest. Lyla looked him up and down, grinning mischievously. “You should just let them join already, instead of stalking them.”

“I’m not stalking them,” he retorted, closing out the window.

“Right right right,” Lyla responded. “What’s this then?” She snapped her fingers, and videos and videos of you pop into view; you shaking hands with Captain Stacy; you swinging around your Earth’s New York City; you enjoying your morning coffee on your balcony; you. You. You— 

“You have a problem dude.”

“It’s not like that,” Miguel said, a growl seeping into his words. “I’m just… making sure they are safe.”

“You could make them safer if you just let them join~”

“No.” Miguel rubbed his temples, glancing up to stare at you on the monitor.

Lyla tsked, checking her nails as if she was in dire need of a manicure. “How could I forget you had this self-loathing, cynical nature about you. Shielding them from yourself is just going to drive the both of us insane.”

“Lyla,” Miguel said, “activate ‘do not disturb’ mode.”

“Whatever, stalker.” With a roll of her eyes, Lyla flickered out of view, leaving Miguel alone. With only you.

His eyes are drawn to an advertisement in the background of one of the videos. You, in your Spider suit, advertising some energy drink on a giant screen in the middle of Times Square. Another screen showed you advertising some sort of athletic wear, and he could see someone dressed in your suit down below, taking pictures with tourists. Sure, Spider-People in almost every dimension take on advertisements, sell merchandise, and sign autographs. But everyone loved you, everyone wanted to get close to you. You even got J. Jonah Jameson to soften up to you with your cushy job as editor of The Daily Bugle.

In every dimension, everyone admired you, adored you, even. You were cherished by all.

And in every dimension, Miguel was the cause of your death.

Miguel gritted his teeth, a fang threatening to break the skin of his lip. The flood of incoming memories was doing nothing to dull the pain behind his eyes, and he slammed a fist into one of the monitors, watching as it flickered once, and all of the orange screens turned to black.

He held his head in his hand, mind drifting to the first dimension he had found you in. His dimension.

Absolutely intelligent, hard-working, ambitious, you joined Alchemax as an intern with the goal of being a top geneticist, like himself. As you moved up in the ranks, you became a member of Miguel’s team, tracked to design a serum that could allow anyone to gain superpowers. Miguel viewed you as a vital member of his team; obedient without needing to be, kind and optimistic despite the workload assigned to them all, and one to watch. With your brains and work ethic, you would have been at the top of Alchemax in no time.

Would have. It all went wrong, and it was his fault. You and him were both against using felons as test subjects for the serums, but it was out of both of your hands. You were only supposed to take the blood of the man they had injected with the serum, with Miguel monitoring the screen from outside the room. It happened instantaneously. The man in the hospital bed reacted negatively to the serum, growing the legs of a spider in seconds and grabbing you by the throat. Miguel watched in horror as the man wrapped his spider legs around your neck, slamming you over and over again against the cool tile walls.

The next thing he remembered was security gunning the man down, and him cradling you in his arms.

That was the first of the tragedies that plagued his life. When he decided to abandon his dimension for another one, one where he wasn’t afflicted by the role of Spider-Man, he was not expecting to find a dimension where he and you had a family together. For a split second, he imagined a world where he had taken you up on the offer of having a drink after work, if he answered those silly pictures you sent him more often. A world where the two of you had a family, and he didn’t have to take one over.

That thought collapsed when he saw what became of you in this new world. Miguel—this version of himself—didn’t love you. Not like he should have. After years of marriage, you discovered his lies, his deceit, his cheating. You seperated from him immediately, moving into your sister’s place as you began divorce and custody proceedings. Then, one night, while you were driving to your old apartment to pick up Gabriella, you were struck by a drunk driver.

You, this dimension’s favored meteorologist, were mourned for weeks. News channels across New York showed your face and aired your best segments in memoriam. New York City’s treasured weather forecaster, dead at the hands of a drunk driver, leaving behind a devastated husband and daughter. Even in this dimension, you were loved by all.

Miguel had killed you twice, and didn’t even know the second time. If that version of him hadn’t been so despicable, hadn’t thrown away something so precious, then you wouldn’t have been driving that night. It was his fault.

So when he saw that dimension’s Miguel be gunned down, what was he to do? Leave Gabriella to be an orphan? He couldn’t do that. Not to you. She’d be loved by a regretful father, and your memory would be kept alive until he died.

How naive he was.

“Earth to Miguel,” a voice chimed. Miguel stopped his self-inflicted mental torture to glare at Lyla.

“I thought I put you on ‘do not disturb’.”

“Have you not seen your watch blinking? Anomaly detected on Earth-799. Jess needs backup.”

His breath hitched, eyes trailing down to his Gizmo where he found several missed calls from Jess. “Send Hobie,” he said, voice lacking emotion. The thought of seeing you face to face made his stomach churn.

“He’s not available,” Lyla replied, pushing her heart shaped sunglasses up.

“Then send Peter B.,” he said, annoyance seeping into his voice.

“He’s in a ‘Daddy and Me’ class; he sent pictures, wanna see?” Lyla asked, pulling out her phone.

“No!” Miguel snapped, rubbing his forehead. “Send Ben, send Lego Peter, send Pav! Send anyone but me.”

Lyla tutted, shaking her head. “No one is available. Jess needs you, Miguel.”