a ghost never leaves a haunted house | l.f. & l.h. & b.m.
summary: hunter will take any decent housing at this stage, and hey, ghosts for roommates can’t be any worse than the ones he already has.
pairing: leo fitz x lance hunter x bobbi morse
cw: past character death
word count: 1339
read it on ao3
Finding affordable housing anywhere, but particularly in somewhere like New York, is damn near impossible. And while living with roommates isn’t necessarily the worst thing in the world, it seemed as though Hunter was some type of magnet for the worst kind of roommate candidates, and after the fallout of Kara and her boyfriend’s argument, he’s desperate to live on his own.
He’d all but given up on the hope that one day he’d be able to live on his own, and his dating life was more abysmal than Kara’s, which was a hard find, so moving in with a partner wasn’t exactly a viable option. So when Mack barged in, all knight in shining armour type, and told him about a new lot of land that he’d bought for what he declared was a ‘steal’ and his intentions to renovate the abandoned building into an apartment block.
Hunter had practically leapt at the man, begging him to let Hunter be one of his tenants, and after a minute of pitiful begging, Mack smiles at him and suggests he come down to the building to get a better idea of the space first. It’s strange, the secrecy and the uncertain smiles regarding the building, but Hunter is desperate and if he could get actual decent housing for a humane cost, he’d take all of the secrets in the world. Besides, what’s the worst that could be true?
It takes a few weeks to actually work out a good time for Hunter to visit the building, between last minute shifts at work and some issues with the contractors that puts Mack’s deadline behind a few weeks. By the time the day does arrive, he’s practically vibrating out of his skin to move out, and even though his mind has gone to the worst outcomes possible, nothing could stand between him and freedom.
He meets Mack outside of the building, the construction crew walking around them and greeting Mack as they see him, and he follows him up the stairs to the only inhabitable apartment. As he wanders through the apartment, Mack hangs back in the lounge area as Hunter takes everything about the apartment in. It’s spacious, there’s actually a view from his windows that isn’t just bricks and alleyways, it’s near a subway station, and best of all, he wouldn’t need to get a second job to live there.
As he turns to go back into the lounge area, he hears Mack’s low voice talking with someone female, someone markedly not his girlfriend Elena. He walks into the room and sees Mack laughing along with two incredibly out of place looking strangers. The woman, the one Hunter had heard him talking with, looks like she’s fresh out of the film Grease. Meanwhile the man looks like he just stepped out of an eighties punk concert, minus the ridiculous looking mohawk.
Her golden hair was slicked back into a tight ponytail, a bright red hairband settled on top of her haid. She’s wearing a red and black chequered skirt on, a plain white shirt and a cosy looking black cardigan, her shoes the black and white ones that are so typical of the era. The bloke, on the other hand, is wearing ripped jeans and a flannel shirt that’s too sizes too big, his combat boots beaten and worn in.
Either way, neither of them look as though they could be from this century. However what really solidifies it for him is when the woman walks through the kitchen counter. Not around it, but through it. He can’t bite back the incredulous laugh at the sight, and when all of the attention has fallen onto him, they disappear from his vision entirely.
“Oh you have got to be kidding me.” He laughs maniacally as Mack’s expression turns apologetic. “Of all of the things that could’ve gone wrong with this place, it had to be fucking ghosts. Ghosts!”
“Okay look man, I didn’t want to tell you because it seems…”
“Absolutely batshit insane?” Hunter fills in the blanks. “Yes, it fucking does. How do you get them back?”
“Why do you want to know man?”
“Might as well get to know my future roommates, surely they can’t be any worse than Kara and Grant. At least if they have an argument then they won’t be able to trash the place.”
“Uh, I guess I’ll leave you to it then. Here’s the keys, just remember to lock up when you leave.” Mack throws the keys in his direction before leaving the apartment, and Hunter takes a seat on the stack of boxes, humming under his breath while he waits for them to show themselves.
It doesn’t take very long, and when they show up in the living area, Hunter has to force himself to not jump out of his skin at the arrival of their translucent bodies. Fitz tries to run away again, but Barbara stops him, grabbing his hand and tugging him over to her, kissing the curls on the top of his head. She introduces the pair of them, smiling at Hunter when he waves at them both, winking at Fitz and watching his cheeks turn a pale pink colour.
“Well he’s rather something to look at, is he not?” Barbara whispers, Fitz pushing away from her to lightly slap her arm and glare at her.
“Don’t be a lech Barbara, he’s right there for crying out loud!” He says, his Scottish accent throwing Hunter off his game.
“Hold on, you’re Scottish? Finally, another Brit around here! You don’t know how long I’ve waited to hear the dulcet tones of someone who isn’t American, no offence love.”
Fitz turns away from him, his embarrassment clearly too much for the man to handle, but Barbara’s gaze never once strays from him, even as she reaches out for Fitz. She questions why he’s still here, usually their ghostly nature and their attachment to their place of death makes them unwanted roommates, but Hunter simply shrugs, telling them how cheap this place was in comparison to everywhere else he’d lived since moving to America.
Both of them laugh, asking how expensive could it possibly be, and when he used to pay three grand a month for a room that was basically a shoebox when he first moved across the pond, he’s concerned that an afterlife heart attack may be the thing to end their spectral existence. Unprovoked, Fitz starts ranting about the system, and if the way Barbara rolls her eyes at the man is anything to go off of, then it’s a rant she’s accustomed to if nothing else.
“Look,” he says once Fitz’s rant has hit a lull, “I’ve never really done the whole ghostly roommate thing before, but as long as you guys respect my privacy and don’t break my shit, I think we can come to some kind of mutually beneficial agreement, don’t you agree?”
“Of course.” Barbara says, making her way over to him and touching his hand, her touch icy against his warm skin. “It’d be a privilege to get to know you Hunter.”
“Well, I best be going, I’ll need to pack up all of my crap from my old place, but I’ll see you both soon.”
Pushing himself off of the boxes, he smiles at the couple a final time before heading towards the front door. And just as he goes to close the door behind him, he turns back to the ghosts, a shit eating grin tugging at his lips as he says:
“And you know, you two are pretty good looking as well. Can’t wait to see more of you both, maybe even biblically.”
With that he locks the door behind him, chuckling to himself at the shocked expressions that he left them both with. His move in date couldn’t come quick enough, especially if it meant he got to see how far the blush would go on both of the blue-eyed beauties that would be living with him for the foreseeable future.
