𝖉𝖔𝖌𝖘 𝖔𝖋 𝖜𝖆𝖗

Willow gives him a small nod, but has not lifted her head to look at him yet. His skull presses softly into her chest, squeezed slightly between the two of them. She doesn’t have it in her to move them away. Too part. She just stays close, not realising how nice it is just to be in someone’s arms without feeling like there’s a reason.

She wasn’t searching for the comfort, wasn’t yearning, greedily reaching out for him. He gave this to her. He came to her. Willow wonders if her tears will soak through him. She supposes she’ll find out soon. She holds on to him tightly.

“It is nice. I didn’t realise how bad I wanted to tell somebody about it until now…”. It comes out as a whimper, almost. But she keeps going. “I wrote a book about it all. Nobody believed it was real.”

#unpossession #✞ conrad — in character. ✞#he isnt winning the try not to fall in love with willow challenge.....

“ You can always come talk to me if you need, ” He resist the urge to lean down, to kiss her forehead, her cheeks — he elects to smile down at her instead, “ I’ll listen — ”

He didn’t feel the tears seeping into him, but they do. They fall right through him, hitting the sheets below. He sees them glistening in her eyes and on her cheeks when he looks down, a concern falling over him — he pulls back, if only to wipe those tears away with careful, cool hands.

“ You don’t gotta be lonely in this if you don’t want to. I can be there. ” Maybe they can be there for each other — lonely from different sides of the same coin. His forehead is pressed to hers. He can swear he feels her heart beating in his own chest.

Willow is surprised by the embrace, not in an unpleasant way, but enough that for a moment she just lays there, still and limp as he pulls her in. She wraps an arm around him, nuzzles in and wonders gently at the fact that she can even touch him. She doesn’t understand it, but she doesn’t have to right now. She appreciates that he would even want to.

“I thought that maybe she left something behind, that’s all.” It isn’t all, but she doesn’t need to make him feel any worse for her. Willow goes quiet for a little while, letting herself be comforted by the breeze, the warm glow of her bedside lamp. She isn’t crying but the deep sadness seems to pour out of her anyway.

“I’m sorry. I don’t normally — it’s not something I really talk a lot about with people unless I — I know them. I don’t know why I just spilled all my guts to you.”

“ I don’t mind. You don’t have to apologize. ”

He feels the sadness welling, it almost smells like incense, almost tastes like sea water. Tears may not be welling in her eyes but they are welling in his; thick, vision clouding droplets that fall from his lashes, dashing across his cheeks. She may not be crying but he is, because he feels her sadness quite literally.

“ It’s probably nice to talk to someone who at least somewhat understands, not that I’m implying you don’t already have people — I know you do. ”

When he notices the tears he is quick to plot them away with the edge of his sleeve — not that he is worried about being seen this vulnerable; he has never been the type to care about shit like that. No, he doesn’t want her to feel bad, he doesn’t want to see the guilt in her eyes as she watches them fall.

“It’s hard to… Explain.” Willow sucks on the inside of her cheek, the only reason she manages to tear her gaze from the ceiling is because Conrad has touched her. It’s not the shock to the system that it was when she was taken by surprise in the house. He’s still a little cold, and she shivers just a tiny bit, but it’s nice. She feels like she might be able to go on without crying. Willow takes a shaky breath in.

“I was at a party and there was this boy there that wouldn’t leave me alone. He… So anyway, I… I beat him up really bad and ran off to this house I knew was nearby. Everybody was scared of it, boarded up for years, hardly standing up. I thought it’d be a good place to, y’know. Wait everything out. But I wasn’t alone there… she was there.

…I didn’t have a choice, but I didn’t — I didn’t fight it. We were together for a long time. It was — it was really beautiful. It was. It’s just hard to - to articulate. Did you— did you feel it? When you touched me?”

The implications are horrifying, all of the spaces she left out in her stammering paint a very clear picture, one that makes his stomach churn and his blood boil. Maybe it’s not the best time, maybe they don’t know her well enough for it, but he doesn’t really think of that before — he acts, gentle but swift, pulling her up against his body in an embrace. Ghosts can manipulate the vibes in the room right? Well, he hopes that he can do it, because he does everything in his power to be comforting, warm, inviting.

It’s a dark memory, no matter how many years she has had to romanticize it. An extra light turns on in the corner of the room, the window unlatches and slowly swings open, letting in that cool ocean breeze.

“ I’ve always felt that you were a little more sensitive than others but, ” he’s picking his words carefully, “ I didn’t feel anything particularly… different, if that’s what you’re asking. I don't really know what you're asking. ”

"It was... Um..." She laughs softly. It's a sad laugh. "I've been chasing the feeling my whole life since."

As for it being like the movies, that really depends on who you ask. Willow's family either didn't notice or were sure that she was out of her mind. Which may have been very much like the movies. She became a stranger, someone else, and she liked it that way. Willow was only young when it happened. Sometimes, she swears she never left the spot that she met her ghost.

"I was fifteen at the time, I think. I don't remember much of my childhood beyond the typical horrors, so it's hard to really say for sure. But it was the only time I ever felt, I don't know. Whole. It left a space in me, I think."

“ Fifteen, ” Conrad’s face pulls to a frown, maybe the first one that she’s ever seen from him. It’s unnatural, given just how much he smiles, but the idea of someone so young subjected to that —

“ Sounds terrifying. I couldn’t… I couldn’t imagine. But, uhm… you talk about it like you… liked it? ” He doesn’t really understand that, and he doesn’t think he would be able to understand that either. To feel empty is something he has never really had to grapple with, and that all sounds just so… bleak. He turns onto his back, eyes scanning the details of the ceiling, reaching out a tender hand to touch Willow reassuringly. And she’s warm — warm, a feeling he hasn’t felt in a long time. He didn’t feel her warmth when they were in that old, falling apart shack, only now… and he fights with himself not to pull her closer for more of it.

“ What… happened? ”

#youer kidding. ulik youre kiddin>>>?/ oh my fhosgos.#✞ conrad — visage. ✞

rylandsgrace

AUSTIN BUTLER as BENNY

The Bikeriders (2024) dir. Jeff Nichols

"That's okay, I think I might have been a little jumpy. It's been hard. I didn't even want to come along tonight 'cause I thought it might be too much. I'm glad it was just you." Willow lays down on her back and rests the skull on her chest, looking up at the ceiling with half-lidded eyes.

She hasn't felt relaxed in a long time when it comes to Salem. Trying to move past the initial possession was hard enough, then he stabbed himself in front of her that time and she's been on high alert ever since. If it were up to Willow, she might've barred him from ghost hunting for life... But she knows it's hard when you've got a gift. When you feel the pull.

"I was possessed once." She says.

He feels the thrum of her heartbeat within him, hears it in his inner ears, and for a moment it’s as though he can feel his own. It’s incredibly soothing, soothing — enough for him to stop being so tense with his past embarrassment, tossing his bag off the edge of the bed to join her, laying down on his side so that he can still peer at her.

“ You were? ” Conrad’s eyes open from their half lidded, foggy state, to regard her and the changing of her facial expressions more clearly. Interesting, no wonder she’s so fascinated by ghosts. Her little response in the house might just make a little more sense, actually. He doesn’t say that, though, instead electing to ask her a question — “ How… how was it? Is it like in the movies? Or — ? ”

She smiles a bit. That's a decent enough answer for her not to begrudge keeping a secret from Salem. Willow's got one too many of those already, but she'll let Conrad come out with all this on his own time. Plus, he's right. If Salem broke down the way he did after Conrad only touched him, he isn't ready for an actual wild encounter with one.

"Okay. That's fair..." Then there's a little grimace, because she realises how rude she's been to him all this time, thinking he has mostly questionable intentions. He's never been anything but nice, even when they met at the clubhouse. She hovers her hand over his, wondering if he can feel it, and then decides to just wave a little. "--I'm sorry for going all... monstery on you. If you have any questions about that, I'd be happy to answer those, too. Since you've been so forthcoming."

“ Oh, that? It’s whatever. ” he’s so nonchalant, relaxed, eyes still closed and head tilted back just barely. This is the closest he has felt to being sleepy in a long while — he thinks he misses that, too. The little things, ones that are so often taken for granted… Those are things that he misses the most.

“ I’m not gonna ask you about it — you didn’t know who I was and were protecting Salem, nothing wrong with that. ” he knows what she is now — the same thing that Hunter and Adríel and Hawk are, and he has heard and seen plenty from them. A fly on the wall for conversations that he shouldn’t have been a part of. He knows all he needs to, so he won’t press her for details — anything she wants to tell him will be her choice to divulge, in her own time. They have all the time in the world, after all.

“ — But, for what it’s worth… I’m sorry. About scaring Salem like that. I’ll apologize to him later, but I’m sorry I made you think he was really in danger. Trust me — I wouldn’t do anything to hurt him. ” I think I’m a little in love with him, he almost says, but decides to swallow it back.

She's not tactless enough to ask for specifics on this -- the topic seems to darken the room enough without her pressing him for answers he might not be ready to give. Willow just nods a little bit, her playful tracing turns into more of a gentle stroke, as if she were pushing the hair from his face, or caressing his cheek.

"I'm sorry that happened to you..." Willow sighs this out, hurting for him. Betrayed by someone he loves. Burned and hidden out in the fields. It's how she wanted to go out, really. It seems less romantic now.

"So... Why are you ghost-catfishing Salem?"

He’s appreciative of the tone change — maybe one day he can go into more detail without the ache that forms in his chest, but for today… Maybe this was enough for now. His eyes close as he allows himself to relish in Willow’s soft, tender touches. She’s so much gentler that he is used to — he likes it. Maybe he should let her hold his skull more often.

His smile is quick to return, a little devious though still laced with that distant melancholy, “ Because it’s fun. I kinda want him to know, some day, but I think it’s really funny he hasn’t figured it out yet. This isn’t the first time I have done this to him. ” He cards his fingers through his hair, perfect blond and silky smooth, “ I don’t think he is a bad investigator or anything, he just needs to refine his skills. Gonna be important for him now, since the possession. Not everyone is gonna be as nice as me, or have the same self control either. ”

“You caught me off guard!” Willow swats at him with her free hand, at least able to giggle over her own incident now that they’re on equal footing, and tries to remember her other questions. Unfortunately coming up a little short. She’ll have to improvise some.

Willow holds the head up to Conrad’s for reference, imagining what her own skull would look like in her hands. It begins to feel less strange to hold - but she still holds it so carefully in her hands, you would think it might shatter.

“Why were you killed?”

He never really understood why, but he knows the reasoning. He knows where to find the answers he seeks, if he were brave enough to do so. Conrad likes to consider himself a brave man, but not about this. He doesn’t know if he can see her face again without serious repercussions.

“ “Ritual sacrifice”, or at least, that’s the reason I was given before it happened, ” there is a tremble in his voice, his eyes cast to the ground, “ Though I think that’s not entirely true. I think I was killed as proof of loyalty. She always felt like she had to impress him. ”

This is harder than he thought it would be. He hoped for catharsis, and maybe it’s still to come, but even scratching the surface is…

“ I’m still a missing person, though, uh, correctly assumed dead. They went back to my apartment after it burned out and collected what they could of my body and buried it in the local park, a real secluded area that no one really walked — the Golden Gate park, y’know. In San Francisco? No grave stone, no formal burial. It was a while before anyone found me. ”

Willow laughs even harder, absolutely delighted by this change in their little power imbalance. Yeah. Not so smug now, is he? Although the pleasure may be dampened a little by the fact that she feels like a little bit of a sadistic monster for torturing him, she does try her best not to let it ruin her fun too much. She continues tracing.

“ASMR is like, a response to stimuli that makes your scalp tingle. But since you actually feel this, I dunno. I think you just had a mini orgasm right in front of me ‘cause I touched your scalp.”

Another laugh. She kicks her feet behind her and gives the skull a kiss on the cheek. Or - cheek bone, she guesses.

Maybe it’s determination, maybe he has gotten used to it, or maybe he is telling himself anything to stay in control — but at the very least, he’s able to stifle any unwanted noises that threaten to escape, though at the cost of goosebumps up and down his body. He wipes a hand over his face in a failed attempt to ground himself.

“ I-I don’t want to hear it. I whispered in your ear and you fell down stairs ‘cause you were so horny. ”

Deflection, nice! No she totally won’t make fun of him for this later! Now it will super be swept under the rug! He’s still smiling, always smiling, because despite the mortification he’s still having fun.

“ Now instead of teasing the dead man about his ability to feel, you wanna keep asking me those questions? Can’t imagine you only had those three for me. ”

“…Did you just nut?” She sits there, totally stunned, skull in hand. Willow blinks a few times before finally bursting into a fit of laughter, holding the skull safely against her chest as she doubles over in her giggling.

“Was it the tracing? Did you get ASMR? Was it this—?” Willow traces her fingers over his skull again, teasing, expecting him to swat her away or snatch the skull back into his own grasp. “‘Cause I can totally see how that might feel good…”

“ What…!? I — ” He sits bolt upright now, his bag now placed in an ever so convenient spot. He's not making eye contact — he’s smiling still but it’s not the same cocky, self-assured one he normally wears. It’s nervous, shy — and though he can’t feel it, his cheeks appear flushed.

“ N-no, I just — ” he clears his throat, laughing at himself, his nerves — and the mounting mortification, “ You gotta understand, I feel all of that, like you’re touching me but… more. Like how it used to feel, before I died. Just gave me the shivers. Like, t-tingles I guess… What the fuck is ASMR? ”

He doesn't, however, try to take the skull from her hands. Despite the embarrassment, it still feels nice. That, and he is desperately trying to play it cool.

Willow carefully, gently, takes the skull from his hands and examines the markings. This isn't her first encounter with human remains, but it's the first time she's ever touched them. She's always been wary of disturbing the dead, but here he is, offering it out to her. She won't lie, pretend she hasn't been curious.

With such a delicate hold on the skull, she traces her fingertip over one of the markings, the hand supporting his jaw is delicate, soft. Willow listens to his explanation and leans close, examining the carvings. Her breath brushes against her fingertips.

"It's hard to imagine that there's a layer of you that you don't recognise, I suppose..." She doesn't look away from the skull, observes it closely. "Who did this for you?"

Her dainty, graceful fingers feel much different than those rough hands of the Dogs, or of Zero’s strong and hungry grasp. He feels cradled instead of clutched, soft and safe and warm. Warm is something nearly unfamiliar to him at his point — despite the fire, this side is so, so cold. “ Well, Uh… I — I don’t actually know, ” He watches her, so tender in her approach. His face softens, “ I had this friend once, really soon after I first died, she found my skull and she took it to someone — ”

Willow’s fingers graze the back of his skull, soft and gentle, sending waterfalls of shivers down his spine. Eyes flutter shut, his head thumping back onto the mattress.

And let the record reflect that the noise he made was completely involuntary.

Eyes shoot back open. He looks at Willow in horror, “ U-Uh — ”

She's so annoyed that she can't allow herself to be truly excited by this whole thing. Anybody else - any other ghost falling onto her bed and producing a carved skull for her beholding would be the most exciting thing in the world -- but she's embarrassed, they already know each other and she thinks that maybe acting anything other than vaguely interested might scare Conrad away. Or open her up for mockery.

So she tries to stifle how amazed she is at the offer, but sort of fails to contain the amazed gasp at the sight of it. Willow quickly attempts to tone it down. Is he going to let her hold it? It seems that way... Willow holds out her palms, soft and careful as she sits beside him on the bed and waits for him to actually hand it over.

Willow wouldn't dream of being too rough - she isn't aware of how sensitive it is, but she can't imagine that it's not important to take care with such an artefact. She looks at him, her large eyes doubled in size and her lower lip a little pouted.

"So this... binds you to wherever it is?"

Conrad would imagine that most in Willow’s situation — obsessed with ghosts, presented with one hell of a ghost artifact — would have taken the opportunity to snatch it up already, to turn it around in their hands to hungrily discern just what it is. Push the limits, all for the sake of curiosity or whatever — Conrad looks on at Willow with a sort of wonder, maybe even confusion. Maybe she is just scared? He doesn’t really understand, but he is grateful. He holds it out further for her, an invitation.

“ Yeah, something like that. I can only go a certain amount of feet away from it before I hit some sort of invisible wall, I guess. It’s my “anchor”, or whatever y’all ghost hunters call it… Kinda crazy to look at it, really. Still doesn’t feel… real. ”