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jack-kellys · 1 year

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Détective au + afterlife au for the ask game!!

what's quite funny about this ask is that it became a ghost hunting/destroying storyline and then maybe two hours into writing the snippet i got a ghost hunting au + something else ask. more for me!!

i have a lot but u can send me more randomized aus!

okay SO! recently i saw this 8 episode show called lockwood & co on netflix (originally a book series) and it was sort of a weird first season to follow without the lingo and historical context of the world so basically this is an au adjacent to that concept. inspired by, if you will. one thing that's important is that young ppl lowkey function as living tools to listen to, see, or feel ghosts' energy. so they are tasked with destroying ghosts. without further ado here's a 1.6k word scene of a one-shot idea i'll finish eventually!

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Sarah and David stood at the door together, the eerie home where their research had brought them. A haunted item, some music box, had been being bought and sold across the city, only leaving haunting incidents in its wake. It wasn’t hard for the spirit within to free itself with all that travel and the likely lack of protection the music box had undergone. David had tracked the hauntings, cross-referenced with recent black market sales, and estimated the next location via finding the latest buyer’s home. Sarah had surmised the threat level based on the hauntings (the deaths; there had been ten recent ones of hypothermia, which could only mean a ghost’s touch), finding police reports and tapping their forensics friend Finch to properly place what kind of threat they’d be dealing with.

And now, armed with iron bullets, chest plates, and lined gloves among other things, Sarah tried the doorknob. Unlocked.

The twins shared a look, David nodding and fingering his pistol as Sarah carefully opened the door.

An iron blade poked into David’s throat, both siblings freezing in place. After a moment, David groaned.

Holding the sword was ex-detective Jack Kelly, who looked about as shocked as David had been. His two brothers-in-arms, Charlie and Anthony, flanked his sides with their own weapons drawn.

“Who gave you this case?” Jack demanded in a whisper, while Sarah scoffed.

“Who gave you this case?” she countered. “You’re not registered detectives anymore, Kelly. You can’t be here.”

“And somehow, we were here first,” Anthony grinned. “If we cracked it better and quicker than you, then I think we gotta be the right people to be here.”

“Too many of us’ll make us dead a lot faster, so you guys should go,” Charlie nodded. “We got it covered.”

David scowled, guiding Jack’s iron away from his neck with a finger.

“Not a chance in hell,” he muttered, marching past all of them. “Follow me.”

After a moment of hesitation, he heard footsteps behind him, and his own grew more sure.

The old hardwood of the house barely creaked under their feet, careful of the noise they made as they were essentially breaking and entering– it was the buyer’s property, and David wasn’t sure if the man was home or not. Essentially, all they had to do was secure the music box and get it to their detective agency, to determine if it should be stored or if it was safer to destroy it. Spirits were mostly tied to objects, and since these specific hauntings had been within a short radius of the box, it had to be the spirit’s physical connection. But where in the house the box could be was another matter.

David’s hand found his sister’s, letting her take it and closing his eyes. Listening.

“Right,” he heard Jack drawl out. “The spirit gonna give us directions?”

“You know it doesn’t work that way,” David sighed, “or I’d be calling you an empath.”

“He does love his crystals,” Charlie teased, and David heard a small rustling between the two brothers, likely from Jack pushing the other.

“Quiet,” he said softly, suddenly, a small sound at the back of his head. Mechanical, a trill of gears tapping and moving to his left. He drifted toward it, allowing Sarah to guide his steps. The sound moved forward, between his eyes now as the noise of it came more into focus. It wasn’t tinny, wasn’t machine-like despite the ticking and tapping of it. He felt his feet hit the stairs, and cautiously started up them.

“What are you hearing?” Sarah whispered, resting her other hand on David’s back.

“It’s fluid,” he murmured, “as much as a music box can be, anyway. Guessing it’s because of the spirit’s post-life being attached- or… combined with it.”

“I’d rather fight a ghost than a box, so let’s not hope ‘combined’,” Anthony muttered behind him. Jack stifled a laugh, before letting out another one. David heard the railing’s wood creak, maybe a hand tightening around it.

“Wasn’t that funny, Jack,” Anthony said. “Now you’re just patronizing me.”

“I know, you’re not that-” Another giggle broke it off, what sounded like a hand slapping over Jack’s mouth as they made it to the top of the stairs. The fluid sound grew louder in David’s ears. Melodic, bright, and pretty, a swirling tune that tried to make David smile.

His eyes flew open with a small gasp, squeezing Sarah’s hand.

“Something’s wrong,” he murmured. “The spirit sounds too strong, we have to find that box- we have to find out if the buyer’s still- …alive.”

His gaze had landed on Jack, hunched over the banisher with his shoulders shaking as his brothers tried to get him to look at them.

“Jack,” Sarah hissed, “what do you feel?”

“Come on,” Charlie encouraged, rubbing Jack’s back. “Jackie, you’re okay, come on.”

“It’s- kind of…” Jack started, falling into a strained batch of giggles again. He lifted his head, fingers pressed to his temples and pained look on his face while a smile resided on his lips. He shook his head, laughing again. “Very.. happy. It’s happy, that kinda bubbly ecstatic feeling? You should…”

Jack grinned, lopsided and loose, and David stepped back. They had to get him out of here.

“You should check- on the buyer,” he laughed, curling into himself. “You should- oh, man, you should–hahaha–check on the buyer…”

“Fuck. Fuck,” Sarah breathed, hand on her sword. “Charlie, stay with Jack. You two, with me.”

David nodded, glancing at Anthony before casting his gaze at Jack once again. The boy couldn’t hold it in anymore, wheezing with delirious laughter as Charlie leaned against the bannister with his iron cane at the ready. David tore his eyes away, running after Sarah.

The noise, the music was present in David’s ears now without him even trying to concentrate, loud and repeating and quite beautiful. He gripped his forehead between his index finger and thumb, trying to silence it while he drew his pistol. Sarah kicked open the bedroom door, and the pretty music faded away from him.

“Oh, shit,” Anthony sighed out, crossing over to the bed. A body laid there, with skin chilled and lips blued and eyes grayed. “Well, there’s our buyer. How’d Jack know by a feeling?”

“And why would a ghost in a music box be happy to kill?” Sarah frowned. “Spirits don’t often know they’re killing others, that’s…”

And then noise as a whole left completely, David’s eyes falling on an object on the dresser as the world fell into static silence. It was ornate, rectangular, with run-down gold moldings on its edges and glossed rose along its top and sides. He stepped towards it, wanting to investigate the rest of it. Look at it, look into it. Wanting to open it, wanting to hear it again, so pretty and soft...

“-avid!”

He winced at the surge of live sounds- walls creaking, Sarah’s voice, her feet on the carpet, the clink of Anthony’s pistols in their holsters. Something was in his hands, rectangular, and he could hear Jack’s laughter shriek in amusement from down the hall.

“Don’t open it,” she was saying, her eyes wide. Anthony was still by the bed, hands by his hips, fingers spread. “David. Don’t. Just give it to me.”

David’s gaze dropped to what was in his hands, the pretty music box occupying his vision again. All he had to do was tug his finger towards himself, and he’d hear the song again. That was all he had to do.

“No,” he said suddenly, though his grip tightened on it.

“No?” Anthony scoffed, shifting on his feet a bit- a more active stance. “For the know-it-all, you sure are stupid. Drop it, Jacobs. Now.”

“All we have to do is get it in the iron sack,” Sarah said softly, shooting Anthony a look. “David, just let go, and I’ll put it in. Don’t listen to whatever you’re hearing–”

“I’m not hearing anything,” he interjected. “I can’t hear it, it’s in my head, Saz, so if I just- if I open it then it could counter it–”

“No way,” Anthony said, shaking his head. “It’s like Charlie said. The more of us there are the easier we wind up dead, so don’t try shit to make that true.”

“But what if- if it could counter what Jack’s going through too?” David tried. “He’s sick with it, it’s contained in him right now, right? If we open it, we can release it.”

“You don’t know what you’re saying right now,” Sarah said, her voice the material of her weapon. David watched her hands take hold of the box in his grasp. “You’re not in your right mind, Ach. Let go.”

“Once it’s open, we can put it in the bag,” David scoffed. “That’ll make sure the spirit stays trapped and Jack and I will be fixed-”

She tugged it, like they were seven years old again, and David tugged it back.

“Jesus christ,” Anthony muttered. Swiftly, he pulled out a pistol, David glancing up to see the circular, hollow barrel of it.

“You’re insane,” David scoffed.

“That’d be you,” Anthony sneered. “Drop it.”

“Fine.”

David raised his hands over his head, and the box went flying behind him.

Sarah shoved him aside, Anthony raced around the bed, and David watched as it hit the ground.

A bright, tinkling sound filled the room as Anthony drew both his guns and Sarah raised her sword, both stepping back as a flickering shape rose into the air. David’s brain felt noisy, but… grounded. Clearer, feeling a bit sick though present.

“She’s in a fuckin’ tutu,” Anthony sputtered out, eyes wide. David didn’t have the clearest sight when it came to spirits’ physical forms, only a flicking outline. “She’s a dancer, and… she’s smiling.”

And Jack’s laughing hadn’t stopped.

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