Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Gem is nervous. 

She sits in her car in the Hermitcraft parking lot, clutching her satchel with both hands where it rests in her lap. She digs her fingers into it hard enough to indent the leather in an attempt to steady her shaking hands. It doesn’t work, and it doesn’t help, but she pretends it does. 

When Xisuma approached her the day after Impulse Esvee, the most respected ghost hunter at Hermitcraft, sent her an email, Gem couldn’t help but think that it was a joke. After all, no one has ever wanted her on their team. They’ve always pasted fake smiles on their faces and told her that unfortunately, she didn’t make the cut. And it’s fine, even though this was Gem’s dream since the start. She’d come to terms with the fact that she’d always be the paperwork girl, and never the ghost hunter, not unless someone wanted some help on an investigation. She could help in other ways. It’s fine. 

But then Xisuma asked her if she’d be willing to join the team. Officially, not just helping out every once in a while. The GIGS team, famous in the ghost hunting realm for their efficiency and their team bond. And Impulse had seemed so polite over the email, if not a bit tense and nervous. Who was she to decline such an incredible offer? 

Gem isn’t sure if she’s ready for this, but she sighs and exits her car. She slings her satchel over her shoulder, instinctively slipping her hand into it to make sure that everything she needs—her car keys, a field journal, a fully stocked first aid kit, water, plus some other random items—is in there. As soon as she’s sure, she turns towards where a group of four people are standing outside of a van. 

As she approaches, she doesn’t hear any of the easy chatting or the laughter or the friendly teasing that she’d expected. In fact, she doesn’t hear anything. And when she draws closer, she realizes that none of the crew are talking, at all. They’re not even looking at each other. Which is…new. This is different from before, when Gem would stay in the van and they’d all be arguing lightly about who would have to do the spirit box. This is different from their loud laughter when Gem had volunteered to do the job and Grian had snatched it out of Impulse’s hand with an annoyed, but distinctly lighthearted, mutter. This is…wrong. 

One of the men turns to her, and Gem realizes that that’s Skizz. Somehow, he looks different enough that she almost didn’t recognize him. He’s wearing the same suit as usual, with the sleeves torn off, and the tie loose, but something is…wrong. He looks exhausted, stressed; there are bags under his eyes, and the scruff on his chin is prominent. He gives her a smile that’s so tired that it’s hardly real. 

“Hey, guys, she’s here,” he informs the others. His voice is quiet and tight, and Gem feels almost nauseous. She has thought they’d grown close, over the months that she’s helped them out. To the point that Skizz has hugged her when it’s a rough day, and Impulse had made her a little honorary GIGS pin. What happened to change that? Skizz returns his focus to her and tries to force a warm grin, but it just looks sad. “Hey, Gem. Thank you for being here.” 

Gem nods and tries to smile back. “Hi, Skizz. Thanks for having me. It’s a pleasure.” She doesn’t know what’s pushing her to be so formal. During the other few times she’s worked with GIGS, they’ve always been so easy to get along with, so welcoming. What’s going on? 

“A pleasure, Gem.” He reaches out a hand and she shakes it firmly, gripping his hand with the same strength that she’s always been taught to use in professional settings. “You remember us all, correct? We’ve got Grian, Scar, and Impulse.” 

Gem narrows her eyes. Skizz’s voice is carefully controlled, steady, but not in a calm or casual way. It sounds almost rehearsed, like he’s been practicing his lines for ages before she arrived. It’s unnecessary—she’s worked with them a million times before. Of course she knows their names. She doesn’t understand what’s going on here.

“Yeah, I remember you all. Thank you, though,” she responds. “It’s nice to meet all of you. Thank you so much for this opportunity—Mr. Mann, Mr. Esvee.” 

She’s nervous, so nervous that she’s resorted to addressing them more formally than she ever has. She’s trying to keep her voice stable so it doesn’t shake, but it’s so much more difficult than it should be. It doesn’t help that Grian is staring at her icily over the tops of his glasses, his shoulders tense and his jaw locked. Hadn’t he been so kind, before, or at least cordial? Gem tries to ignore him, but it’s hard when it feels like his eyes are burning through her skin. 

“Please, Gem,” Skizz says. “Just call me Skizz.” 

He adjusts his tie, and Gem takes the opportunity to look at the rest of the group. Scar is grinning at her, just as he did whenever she would help out before, but it clashes with the haunted look in his eyes. Grian is still glaring at her piercingly, drilling holes into her skull. Impulse hasn’t even turned to look at her yet, and the sight of his back turned to her is what hurts the most, perhaps. 

She’d thought that, if no one else, the man who emailed her so pleasantly would be in her corner. 

“Skizz,” Gem agrees in response to Skizz’s request that she call him by his first name. She doesn’t look at the others; she isn’t willing to fall victim to their unintentional intimidation.

Nobody talks; nobody moves. Nobody seems to know what to say. Skizz shifts his weight from one foot to the other, eyes flicking around, looking so very uncomfortable. Grian flexes his hand with an unreadable, stony expression that only wavers into some sort of anxiety when he briefly makes eye contact with Gem before glancing away. Scar still has that horrible fake smile on his face, and it’s kept in place with an almost clinical precision. 

Impulse’s shoulders rise and fall in a long, deep breath, and he finally turns to face Gem. 

The first thing that Gem notices is how pale he is. Then the redness in his eyes, then the way his hands tremble when he locks his fingers in front of him.

“Thank you for being here, Gem,” he says, and his voice shakes almost imperceptibly. It’s enough that Gem furrows her eyebrows, confused. “It’s a pleasure to have you on the team.” Grian flinches at the sound of Impulse’s voice, and Scar stiffens. 

Instead of trying to decipher what that means, Gem nods, smiling politely, though not without a certain amount of tightness. “It’s a pleasure to be here.” She wants to add something else, but she can’t find the words.

Scar snorts. “We’ll see if you’ll be saying that after being around us for a bit.” It’s a joke—said in a joking manner, with a grin on his face. 

But something about his expression gives Gem chills, and she has to stop herself from shuddering. There’s a bitter twist to it, something that’s exhausted and stressed and scared.

And, not for the first time, Gem wonders what exactly she’s gotten herself into. Maybe she should’ve stayed as a paperwork girl, after all.

— / — / —

Standing in the van outside of the haunted location, Gem can’t help but feel entirely out of her depth. 

Skizz is giving the mission overview, dull and monotone and practiced. Every time his voice cracks for some unknown reason, he just clears his throat and forges onward.

He assigns roles to everyone: himself and Impulse turning on the breaker, Scar and Grian finding the ghost room, and then they’d all move on to their next roles. And Gem would watch over it all from the van, to make sure that nothing goes wrong.

Skizz had hesitated when he said that last part. There had been a long, drawn out pause where he searched for the right words. Gem notices how Impulse flinches at the phrasing. She shoves it off to the side, sealing it in a box in the corner of her mind that’s neatly labeled, “Things To Not Think About Right Now.”

Grian still hasn’t said a word to her, but she can feel his eyes on her. That goes in the box, too.

“Grian, can you take the spirit box to use after you find the room?” Grian purses his lips, but nods. “And Impulse, once we get the breaker, you can set up the video cameras for Gem, right? Or whoever gets to it first, I guess. But you can do the pictures, and maybe the parabolic mic.”

“Yeah.” Impulse’s voice is quiet, subdued. “Yeah, I can do that.”

This isn’t what Gem remembers about the GIGS crew, the ones that have always been famous for the way they care for each other so deeply. This isn’t what she expected from the ones who were always so closely knit every time she’d worked with them in the past. She had expected laughter, banter, anything but this…tension. 

“And Scar—how are you feeling? Cane, wheelchair, nothing?”

Scar hums thoughtfully, dropping his ever-present grin as he thinks. “I think I’m okay today. But—I left my harness back at Hermitcraft. I’d have used it, since it’s nice to have my cane hanging from my back when I need it, but…well. Can we keep the cane nearby?”

“It’ll be in the van with Gem,” Skizz promises him, and Scar turns a piercing look onto Gem. She doesn’t shrink under it, but it’s a near thing, because there’s a threat in that look. And Grian’s glare on her sharpens.

“You’ll keep it safe,” Scar states, looking her directly in the eyes. For the first time, he’s not smiling. He’s completely serious, deathly so. His words are only punctuated by the feeling of Grian’s eyes on her.

Gem nods, her breathing strangely shallow. “I will.” It has no doubt in it, and even though Scar scrutinizes her for a moment, he eventually nods and relaxes slightly. Gem can’t help but feel like she’s passed some sort of test. 

Skizz clears his throat. “Okay. In that case, Scar, could you take in temp to find the room, and maybe a cruci, just to be safe? And while you do that, either me or Impulse will find the breaker, and then I can go and set up motion and sound sensors around the place. Does that sound good to everyone?” 

Everyone starts nodding, but Gem clears her throat and raises her hand. “I—is there anything specific I need to do? I know—I know about the activity board, the cameras, the map…uh, the sanity levels? But is there anything else?” She was never specifically in the van when she helped them in the past. She just did whatever they needed her to do. Usually, they just had her as backup, as a way to revive them if they got wiped by the ghost. She doesn’t know how the van works, not really. 

“Uh—yeah. Yeah, sorry.” Skizz clears his throat. “Uh, we never really…had a van guy before, so we kinda just used to deal with it. But, uh, yeah. Keep an eye on activity, let us know if there’s a hunt. Watch cams for ghost orbs or D.O.T.S. or anything else that’s weird, watch the motion sensors and the sound sensors and stuff….” He glances over at Impulse. “Is that all, or is there anything else, Impulse?” 

Impulse stiffens at being addressed, but forces his shoulders to drop in a show of being relaxed. “Uh—make sure we don’t go insane. If anyone dips beneath…we’ll say fifteen? If anyone drops beneath fifteen percent sanity, call ‘em out of the house, and they can just recover in the van for a bit. Maybe take some medication to help. Tell us what we need to do when we ask—sometimes the client wants a picture of the ghost or something on the motion sensor or something else as evidence, so let us know about that. And what the ghost’s name is. That’s it, I think.” 

Gem nods. “Okay—activity, cams, sensors, sanity, info. Hold on—" she digs into her satchel where it hangs on her hip and pulls out her field journal and a pen. She flips to the very back, where there’s a spot with nothing but lined paper, and clicks the top of her pen. 

While she starts to scribble down what they’ve told her, repeating it in her head to make sure she doesn’t forget before she manages to get it onto paper, she hears someone clear their throat. 

“What are you doing?” 

Gem glances up and meets Grian’s eyes. It’s the first time the man has spoken since Gem arrived, and it’s dripping with a certain amount of judgement. He sounds almost scornful at the fact that she’s trying to make sure she doesn’t forget her responsibilities. 

Gem bristles, stiffening. She doesn’t mean to sound so sarcastic when she responds, “Writing it down?” Her eyebrow is raised, and her jaw is tense even as she tries not to sound frustrated. “So I don’t forget?” 

“You wouldn’t have forgotten. It’s easy,” Grian dismisses flatly, and Gem grits her teeth briefly. Calm down, calm down, they’re clearly on edge today. Calm. This isn’t the Grian she knew before, who would never try to cut someone down with a sharp response. This isn’t the Grian from the last time she was here. She doesn’t know what has changed. 

“Yes,” Gem responds tightly, forcing her voice to stay level. “But I’m new to this job, and I don’t want to forget something important. But thank you for trusting that I have it covered.”

Grian presses his lips together, but doesn’t respond. He just adjusts his glasses and exchanges an unreadable look with Scar that makes the hairs on the back of Gem’s neck stand up on their ends. 

Skizz coughs. “Ah—okay. Now that we’ve got that settled, is everyone ready? Impulse, you’ve got the keys? Everyone’s got their stuff? Gem, the computers are hooked up to the cameras? You should have some that are already there, but we’ll set up some others for you, too.” 

Gem hums and turns to the deck, where the computer is sitting, ready to be powered up. She clicks the spacebar a few times until it turns on, and after a moment of searching around with the mouse, she manages to find the program that they downloaded with the camera feeds for this particular house. “Yep, I’ve got it,” she informs Skizz, and Skizz nods. 

“Okay. Okay. So…I guess….” He clears his throat. “Let’s head on in?” 

With Skizz’s awkward—almost nervous—statement that sounds more like a question, they all move to their spots. Gem takes a seat in the chair at the desk in the van, leaning Scar’s cane up against the wall in a safe place. She sets her water bottle beside her, just next to her hunting journal. The others filter out of the van one by one, strangely silent in a way that Gem has never seen them before. It makes her anxious, and she taps the desk with her pointer finger as she tries to focus on the task at hand. 

“Gem, can you see where the breaker is on the map? It should appear as a little box with a lightning bolt in it.” 

Gem wheels her chair away from the desk and stands up, moving towards the map where it’s tacked onto the wall. She scans it quickly, searching for what Skizz described, but even when she switches from the basement to the ground floor to the second floor, she doesn’t see the little box. 

She clicks her earpiece. “Uh, I don’t see it?” 

“That’s okay, sometimes they don’t give us a location on the map. We’ll find it, it’s usually in either the basement or the garage, so we’ll figure it out. This isn’t a huge house.” 

Even with Skizz’s reassurance, Gem can’t help but feel like she’s already failed at her job. And when she flicks through the cameras, thinking that she should at least try to do part of her job correctly, she sees Grian looking up at her from the living room camera, staring piercingly through her screen as if he can see her. 

She clicks off of that camera quickly. Activity, cams, sensors, sanity, info, she repeats to herself. That’s all she has to do. Activity, cams, sensors, sanity, info.

The activity levels are fine. Every once in a while, they bounce from zero to three to two and back down, but Gem’s keeping an eye on them. They never go above three or four. 

Nothing is happening on the cameras. She watches as Impulse finds the breaker in the basement and calls, “Breaker’s on,” in a dull voice. She watches as Skizz sets up motion and sound sensors on every floor. She watches as Scar finds the room—it’s the kitchen—and a new camera flickers into action on her screen as Impulse turns it on and sets it on the kitchen counter. It’s pointed too far to the left, and it’s cutting off the entire right side of the kitchen. But Grian is floating around, talking into the spirit box monotonously, so Gem clears her throat and taps her earpiece. 

“Hey, Grian, would you mind pointing the camera a bit more to the right? It would be your left.” 

On the camera, Gem watches as Grian glances over to where the video camera is sitting on the counter. She sees him lift his hand to his ear. “It looks fine to me.” 

Gem takes a calming breath. “I can’t see half the kitchen, I just need it a little more to the right.” 

“You’ll be able to see whatever you need to see, it’s fine the way it is.” 

“I’ll come in to do it, if you’d rather me take care of it myself.” Admittedly, some frustration slips through her tone, even as she tries to stay calm and professional through the part of her that’s fighting to escape the cage that she made to contain it. She has to bite her tongue so she doesn’t try to apologize or take back her words out of a sort of instinct that she’s always had. She refuses to apologize for something that she fully meant. 

She’s about to stand up from the chair and march into the house to adjust the camera herself when Grian begins to move. He reaches out for the camera, and for a moment, his hand covers the lens and the kitchen is obscured. When he pulls back, the camera is positioned perfectly.

“Better?” Grian asks tightly over the radio. 

“Much better, yeah,” Gem confirms. “Thank you.” 

Grian doesn’t respond, but Gem smiles at the camera anyways. She’s not sure if that’s progress or not, but in this game where she’s been losing the entire time, she’ll take it as a win. 

She focuses back on her tasks. Activity board? Check. Cameras? Check. Next on the list: sensors. 

Almost as soon as she turns to the board to check the sensors, one of them goes off. It surprises her, and she jolts, nearly knocking her chair over. The sensor that goes off is in the dining room, which is directly next to the kitchen, and Gem clicks on her radio. “Is anyone in the dining room? I’ve got a motion sensor going off.” 

There’s no response. Gem shifts nervously. “Guys? Can you hear me?” Anxiously, she checks the activity levels—is there a hunt that she didn’t notice? Are the others in danger? But no, the activity is wavering at a comfortable one or two, with the occasional peak up to four. 

Just as she’s about to ask again, her earpiece fuzzes with brief static. “Sorry,” Scar says hoarsely in response. “Sorry, that was—that was me. I was in the dining room. Sorry.”

Gem furrows her eyebrows. Why is he apologizing so much? She’s not upset, she just wanted to know what was going on. She just wanted someone to answer her, even. Hesitantly, she taps her earpiece. “It’s—it’s fine, I just wanted to check. No worries at all.” 

There’s no response after that, but Gem feels uneasy. She distracts herself by moving to the next of her responsibilities: checking everyone’s sanity. 

If she remembers correctly—which she does, because she wrote it down in her hunting journal so she wouldn’t forget—she has to make sure that no one drops below 15 percent sanity. So she checks the board. 

The sanity board lists all of their names, with a long, thin bar beneath that shows how sane they are. In the center of the bar, there’s a percentage, as well. At the top of the board, there’s a number for the group’s overall sanity. When Gem looks at herself, her bar is nearly completely full, and the number tells her that she’s at 94 percent. 

She checks Scar’s, next. His is much lower than hers—bobbing around halfway, with his number flickering between 49 and 50 percent—but nothing concerning, so she moves on. 

Skizz’s is the next lowest, around a third full. Gem can’t help but wonder how they all have such different levels—of course, it makes sense that she has the highest, but Scar and Skizz have been in the same house for the same amount of time. How is it that Skizz is nearly 20 percent beneath Scar when it comes to sanity? 

She makes a mental note to ask Impulse about it, then scraps that idea. If anyone, she’ll be asking Skizz, or maybe Xisuma. Impulse doesn’t seem like he wants to be bothered, today. 

When Gem checks Grian’s sanity, it’s around the same as Skizz’s, but it’s draining slowly but steadily. Even as Gem watches, it drops one percent, and then another. She’ll keep an eye on it, she decides, but she won’t mention it to the others until it gets too low for comfort. For now, she’ll check on Impulse’s sanity.

Gem turns to Impulse’s sanity bar, and her heart leaps into her throat. 

It’s low. It’s really low, already below ten percent. As Gem watches, stiff in mild horror, it dips from eight down to seven, and then up to nine before wavering back down to eight. Below 15. She needs to tell Impulse. 

Her throat tight, she fumbles for her earpiece. “Impulse? Impulse, I need you out in the van, please, your sanity is low.” 

For one terrible moment, there’s no response, and Gem wonders if she was too late. But then, there’s static over the radio, and Impulse responds quietly, “How low?” 

Gem blinks. “Uh—just under ten percent. Come on out, please, so you can recover.” 

“I’ll be fine,” Impulse dismisses, but there’s an underlying sense of tension beneath his casual words. “I’ve dealt with lower sanity before. Just let me know if it gets to zero, and then we’ll see how it goes.” 

Gem blinks incredulously. Is she going crazy? She turns to the board to check her own sanity, but no, she’s still hovering around 90 percent. She clears her throat. “Uh, Impulse, I really need you to come out to the van, please.” 

“I’m fine, Gem,” Impulse repeats, slightly harsher. His words have just enough bite to them that it makes Gem flinch, knocks the breath from her lungs. She shakes her head, tries to recollect her thoughts. 

“No, you’re not,” she states bluntly. “You were the one who told me to get you out of the house if you dipped under 15 percent, and now you have to follow through on that.” 

“You don’t know what you’re talking about, Gem,” Impulse informs her sharply. “I’m telling you that it’s fine. Okay? So drop it.” His words have a sort of warning to them, a certain amount of condescension that reminds her of the many times that she’s been written off for being a woman in the ghost hunting world. It reminds her of not being listened to, and she grits her teeth. 

“Listen here, Impulse Esvee,” she responds to him in the same tone that he’d used, sharp and curt. “If you don’t come out to this van to take sanity medication—or at least take a break—then I will march on into that house myself and drag you out by your ear. Do I make myself clear?” 

For a moment, Impulse doesn’t respond. Gem is breathing heavily, feeling somehow lightheaded. She just argued with her team leader. She just yelled at her team leader. She’ll be lucky to be allowed to stick around another day after this, let alone stay for another investigation. 

Someone whistles. Gem can’t tell who it is, but they did it on the radio, so they clearly wanted it to be heard. Unable to tell if it’s mocking or not, she swallows harshly, trying to calm her breathing. 

The radio spikes with static. “Okay,” Impulse responds tightly, though there’s no sign of frustration anymore, and Gem nearly topples over in dizzy relief. “I’ll be out in a moment.” 

A heartbeat passes, and then Skizz adds on to Impulse’s words, “Good job, Gem.” 

Gem inhales, surprised. She almost expects Skizz to take it back, or correct himself, but he doesn’t. And Gem thinks that, maybe, she hasn’t lost her job yet after all. 

— / — / — 

When Impulse arrives at the van, he refuses to look her in the eyes. 

Gem already has the medication set out for him, along with a sealed plastic water bottle. He looks at it—glances from her to the water bottle to the medication and back to her—and Gem coughs. 

“I don’t usually like using plastic water bottles, because they suck for the environment,” she informs him, “but it was all I could find. So there you go.” 

Impulse blinks at it dully. “I can take it without the water,” he tells her, still avoiding her eyes, and Gem scoffs. She’s very aware of the way his sanity keeps dropping, even in the van. It’s odd, and it’s making her nervous. She’s never seen something like this before. 

“Not today, you can’t. I don’t care if you have the physical ability to dry-swallow that stupid pill, you are going to take it with water because it’s safer, and it’s easier to swallow, and it makes it more effective, and also, I don’t trust any of you four to actually hydrate yourselves properly. So drink the water.” 

Impulse freezes for a moment, then nods, and Gem’s eyebrows shoot up at his easy acceptance. “Okay.” He uncaps the water bottle and pops the pill into his mouth before tipping his head back and lifting the water bottle to his lips. He takes a few gulps, then sets it down with one last swallow. 

Gem nods approvingly, despite how awkward it feels to be ordering around the man who’s in charge of things, here. “Thank you. Sit in here for a minute, until it takes effect.”

Impulse shakes his head. “It works immediately, look.” He gestures to his bar on the sanity board, and it’s true; his sanity is already three times as much as it had been, and it’s still rising. Still, Gem presses her lips together.

“Humor me?” she requests quietly, almost vulnerable in the way her voice trembles almost imperceptibly. If Impulse dies, then things will get tense. Things will get bad. She can’t handle having to deal with a death. 

Impulse scrutinizes her, and it feels like he’s staring into her soul. Eventually, his face softens. “Okay, Gem,” he responds, and it’s oddly gentle in a way that starkly contrasts how he’d been treating her before.

Gem relaxes. Her shoulders slump. “Thank you,” she murmurs, relieved. Impulse nods.

For a moment, he’s silent. He doesn’t speak, and Gem doesn’t try to fill the silence with meaningless conversation. She just returns her focus to whatever is next on her list—does she need to give them information? Or is she back to checking the activity?—as she tries to blink back the frustratingly stubborn tears that keep pricking at her eyes. 

“I’m—I’m so sorry, Gem.”

Impulse’s voice—hoarse, almost broken—shocks her out of her thoughts. She jolts, startled, then turns to look at Impulse.

The man’s face is taut with guilt. He wrings his hands so harshly that Gem worries distantly that he’s going to dislocate his fingers. He still refuses to look Gem in the eyes.

Gen clears her throat, feeling so incredibly out of her depth. “Uh—what are you sorry for?”

“Gem, can we get the ghost’s name?” Skizz calls over the radio. Gem coughs and turns to the board quickly. 

“Uh—hold on—" She clicks her radio. “Gregory Watts! Gregory Watts.”

“Thank you!”

“Mhm.” She turns off her radio and looks back to Impulse. “Sorry about that.”

“No, no, don’t—" Impulse swallows. “Don’t apologize. Listen, Gem, I—I’m sorry. I’m really sorry. You—we’ve been treating you terribly all day. You don’t deserve that.”

Gem blinks. “It’s—it wasn’t that bad.”

Impulse raises his eyebrows, almost incredulous. “We’ve been awful to you, Gem. Especially me. We ignored you, we didn’t listen to you…we treated you like an outsider, not like a part of the team. And I’m incredibly sorry for that. I…I completely understand if you’d rather not work with this team, or if you want to ask Xisuma to reassign you or something. I’d—I’d even file the paperwork myself, if it made things easier for you.” It sounds like it pains him to say this. Almost scares him, even.

Gem shifts from one foot to the other. “Impulse,” she says slowly, her throat tight. “This—that’s not anything…weird for me. If I had quit every time my coworkers didn’t listen to me, I would’ve never gotten to this point.”

“But—" Impulse shakes his head, bewildered. His eyebrows are furrowed. “Gem, you realize that’s—that’s not good, right? Your coworkers are supposed to—to listen to you and hear you out and stuff. Why—"

Gem laughs, but it’s bitter enough that it’s nearly a scoff. It makes Impulse stop, stare at her with wide eyes. “Ghost hunting isn’t a woman’s world, Impulse,” she informs him bluntly. “I interviewed at seventeen ghost hunting places before Hermitcraft took me. Seventeen. Big, government-affiliated ones, and small independent ones, and everything in between. Two thirds of them turned me down because I had ‘inherent qualities that wouldn’t be a good fit for the position.’ Or the job ‘wasn’t fit for someone of my gender,’ or whatever other way they came up with to tell me that I’m useless for being a woman.”

Gem pauses, lets her words sink in. Impulse stays silent. He doesn’t interrupt her; he must sense that she isn’t done, yet.

Gem huffs and continues. “Sure, a few of them hired me. Until they had someone new to fill the position. And it turned out that the only ones who gave me a reasonable offer were the creepiest people I’ve ever met. Believe it or not, this is one of my better first days on the job.”

Impulse freezes, swallows harshly. For the first time, he lifts his head and looks her directly in the eyes. She holds his gaze, not harsh or angry, but definitely intense. Impulse exhales. “Oh.” He pauses. “I…I hadn’t realized that it was so....” He stops. “I didn’t know,” he finishes lamely, and Gem releases a puff of air. 

“It’s fine,” she tells him. “I’m used to it. And I’m here now, aren’t I? So as long as you aren’t kicking me out, I want to be here. I’m not leaving unless you fire me.” 

“We’re not firing you,” Impulse states firmly, and Gem blinks. That’s…not what she’d expected. She had thought that she’d messed everything up already, which honestly might have set a new record for her. “We’re—we’re really going to try to be better, okay? I’m sorry that we’ve been treating you so terribly. You don’t deserve that, and we’re—we’ll cut it out. Things have been…weird, lately—"

“Yeah, so, about that?” Gem clears her throat, and Impulse’s eyebrows shoot up. “You want to tell me what’s going on? Like, why everyone’s being so weird? I can’t help if I don’t know what happened—or, I can try, but you can’t blame me when I mess it all up.” 

Impulse exhales, long and tired. He purses his lips in deep though, and draws his eyebrows together in such a way that Gem thinks he’s going to get a headache. He swallows, then sighs. “It’s…not all of it is mine to say,” he warns, and Gem nods. She can accept that. “But…recently, we ended up dealing with an investigation that went…it went really badly.” 

The solemnity in Impulse’s voice sends chills down Gem’s spine. In an attempt to escape, even if just for a moment, she checks the activity—low as it’s ever been—and everyone’s sanity, which is steady for the time being. With nothing else to do, her eyes flicker back to Impulse. “…Yeah?” 

Impulse nods gravely. “It—“ he takes a shuddering breath. “Without getting too much into it,” he murmurs slowly, “I—I had a particularly…intimate interaction with a Demon.”

Gem looks at Impulse’s face—pale, drawn, jaw tight—and a horrible sense of dread descends onto her.

Oh.

Oh.

“You were possessed,” she realizes, a pit forming in her stomach as Impulse flinches at the words. She grimaces, about to apologize, but Impulse nods grimly.

“I said—and did—some—" he stumbles over his words, and Gem’s throat tightens. “Some truly awful things, while I was…influenced. Especially—" Impulse cuts off. He shudders. “Especially to Scar and Grian.”

“Oh.” Gem doesn’t know how to respond. “And—and that’s why—"

“Yeah.” Impulse’s voice is quiet. “Yeah, that’s why.”

Gem goes silent for a moment. She swallows, her thoughts reeling in her head. Impulse glances down, avoids her eyes, and Gem clears her throat. “It wasn’t your—"

“I know,” Impulse rushes to interrupt her. Gem’s frown deepens. “I—I couldn’t control it.”

But the way he says it doesn’t sound like he’s trying to give himself grace. It sounds like a judgement; I couldn’t control it. I was too weak.

Gem purses her lips. “Impulse. You know that you didn’t ask to be possessed, right? You couldn’t have stopped it.”

Impulse manages a weak smile. “I appreciate it, Gem, but I should have seen the signs. Maybe my actions weren’t my own, but the blame still falls on me.”

Gem sighs. “Impulse—"

She’s cut off by the crackle of radio static. “Impulse, if you’re okay now, we need you back in here,” Skizz calls through their earpieces. 

Impulse taps his earpiece. “I’m on my way.” He casts a sad smile at Gem. “Sorry, Gem. Duty calls.”

With that, he turns and exits the van. Gem watches him leave, realizing that she might have more work cut out for her than she’d known.

Chapter Text

Gem has more context, now, for everything that’s been happening since the beginning of the investigation. She has a better understanding of why everyone is acting so oddly. With this new information, it’s become far easier to recognize the tension that stretches between the members of the GIGS crew. In fact, knowing what to look for, it’s fairly obvious. 

Gem watches over the cameras as Grian jolts away any time Impulse gets too close, as Scar refuses to look in Impulse’s eyes, as Skizz flits from person to person, trying to hold them all together. And over and over, she watches as Impulse flinches whenever Grian casts a fearful glance at him or when Scar stumbles away when he enters the room.

She tries to focus on her job. Activity levels are fluctuating between two and three, mostly. Events are occurring left and right. The lightbulb breaks in the kitchen, right overtop of Scar, and Gem is just grateful that he didn’t get cut. But the lights are off permanently, now, which Gem can tell none of them are happy about.

Something is caught on the motion sensor, right where Skizz had been standing thirty seconds before, and Gem nearly spills her water bottle all over her keyboard. Skizz doesn’t seem nearly as concerned, though—his response came in the form of a shrug and a dismissive statement over the radio.

So Gem had moved on.

At some point, Grian gets spirit box as evidence, and as soon as a word can be heard past the static, his sanity drops drastically. Gem startles—where he had been hovering just around the 20 percent mark, he has now plummeted down to nearly 11.

Gem nearly chokes on her own saliva. She presses her earpiece and calls through the radio, “Grian, your sanity just dropped way down, I need you to come on out so you can recover.”

And on the camera, as Gem watches, Grian freezes. 

It’s as if he’s been caught stealing something, or like someone scolded him, but no, this isn’t out of guilt. This is a true, deep, deer-in-headlights sort of fear that shines even through the fuzzy camera.

He doesn’t move.

Gem’s concern mounts in her chest. She hides it with a cough. “Uh, Grian? Can you hear me?”

Gem watches as Grian slowly, shakily, lifts his hand to his earpiece. “I—I can hear you,” he responds, and Gem thinks that she hears the way his voice strains even through the radio.

Gem swallows. There’s a strange sort of feeling—a tingling on the back of her neck, or a dryness in her throat—that tells her to tread lightly, here. “Okay,” she responds cautiously, very aware of the dampness of her palms. “Can you come on out to the van, buddy? I’ll get you some medicine and you’ll be all fixed up, okay? You can pop some pills—do drugs, or whatever.”

Grian laughs. It sounds more like a sob, and it crackles, threatening to burst with static over the radio. “I can’t—Gem.”

Gem bites down harshly on her lip at the anguish in Grian’s voice. This is—something is wrong. Where Grian had been so curt with her earlier, now, he sounds horrifyingly desperate. “Hey, listen to me, Grian,” she says firmly. “I need you to tell me what’s wrong. Where are the others?”

She doesn’t see them on the camera in the kitchen anymore, even though they’d been there just a few minutes ago. It’s as if they’ve disappeared. 

But Skizz’s voice filters through the radio. “We split up around the house, we were searching for hiding spots. And we wanted to leave the room so Grian could do spirit box.”

“Uh—okay.” Quickly, Gem flips through the cameras to find where the rest of the team disappeared to. Skizz in the basement, Impulse in the living room, Scar in the master bedroom. “Okay, the closest one to Grian is—”

Is Impulse. But—knowing what she knows now, she can’t say that, can she? She can’t force Impulse to help someone who’s terrified of him, and she can’t force Grian to accept help from someone he won’t even look at.

Gem clears her throat. “—is Scar.” She sees Impulse’s head whip in the direction of the camera. He stares through it like he’s piercing through her skull. She ignores it. “Scar, can you start heading in Grian’s direction?”

“I’m—I’m on my way.” Scar sounds nearly as terrified as Grian does—though for perhaps a different reason—but Gem doesn’t have the bandwidth to deal with that, so she doesn’t.

“In the meantime, Grian, talk to me. What’s going on?”

For a moment, there’s no response. Grian sucks in a sharp breath, then exhales unsteadily. “It’s dark,” he finally whispers, and Gem’s heart plummets. She watches over the camera as Grian looks around the kitchen—lights off, empty—and tries to breathe. “I—I don’t like the dark. I can’t see. What if—what if something’s there? I don’t—” He cuts off with a flare of radio static, but not before Gem hears his voice crack.

She breathes. “Okay. Okay. Listen to me, Grian. Can you hear me?”

“I can hear you,” Grian confirms hoarsely. His voice is tight, strained, scared in a way that Gem has never heard him before. 

She switches cameras over to Scar, who is making his way to the staircase on the top floor, before flipping back to Grian. “Okay. I know that you don’t know me all that well, but I need you to trust me for a moment, okay?”

“Okay,” Grian croaks. He’s clutching onto the edge of the countertop, now, so tightly that Gem is sure his knuckles would be white if she could see him in person rather than over a camera.

“Scar is almost there. I can see you and him over the cameras, okay? There is nothing and no one in the room with you, I’ve got night vision on and everything. Activity levels are—” well, actually, they’re higher than they’ve been all night, jolting up to nearly six before dying back down, but Gem can’t tell Grian that. “—are normal. I’ve got eyes on the whole room. Remember, you fixed the camera for me? Now I can see everything that’s going on in there, you’re safe. Scar is super close.”

“Gem,” Grian gasps. Something wraps around Gem’s lungs in a vice grip; Grian’s never said her name with such desperation before. She hopes that she never has to hear it again. “Gem, it—it wrote in the book. It wrote—”

“Good, Grian, that’s really good,” Gem encourages, though she can’t help but feel like there’s something deeper to this than just the instinctive fear of ghost interactions. “That means we’re really close to being able to leave. Just one more piece of evidence, right?”

“Grian, what did it write?” Impulse demands suddenly over the radio, and Gem watches as Grian spasms, the spirit box falling from his numb fingers and his breath stuttering. She glances over to the sanity board; Grian is on five percent, and only dropping faster as he stands alone in the pitch-black ghost room. 

And despite Grian clearly being scared, terrified, he responds to Impulse in a whisper, “It says—Impulse. Impulse, I don’t know what to do.” Even through his fear, Grian is turning to Impulse. Even after everything, Impulse is Grian’s comfort.

“Tell me what it says, G, come on,” Impulse coaxes. 

And Gem watches over the camera as Grian’s face splits in two. “It says—it says ‘I see you.’”

It doesn’t mean anything to Gem, but Impulse must understand, because as Gem switches the camera to the living room, where he’s still standing, his face drops. “Oh,” he whispers. “Oh, G.” 

His voice is so soft and gentle and caring that it nearly makes Gem want to burst into tears, even though she’s fine.

“I’m almost there, Grian,” Scar promises breathlessly, but there’s a short crack in his voice as he speaks. “I swear, this house is a maze, isn’t it? Honestly, I’ve gotten lost so many times already.”

Grian laughs, hoarse and hysterical. He wraps his arms around himself and glances wildly around the room, his glasses reflecting strangely in the night vision. 

His eyes land on Gem’s camera and he freezes.

Gem shifts uncomfortably. Grian is staring at the camera, or at her through the camera, perhaps, and it’s making her nervous. When she glances at the board, his sanity is on three percent. “Uh…Grian?”

“Turn off the camera.”

Grian’s voice comes in something that’s barely a whisper, barely audible even over the radio. For a moment, Gem just blinks, convinced she misheard him. “…what?”

“Turn the camera off, Gem.” Grian sounds like he’s on the verge of tears. “Please—please turn it off, or turn the computer off or something, I don’t know. I don’t care, please, just—” he cuts off with a sob, and things click into a horrible sort of understanding in Gem’s mind.

The writing in the book. The camera. The intense fear—even hatred—of being unable to see, of being in the dark.

Grian’s afraid of being watched.

As if on instinct, Gem lunges forward and jabs the power button on the computer with her finger. She holds it until the screen flickers to black, then steps away from the keyboard.

“It’s off,” she announces as soon as it’s true. And she can’t see Grian anymore, so all she can do is hope that this helped. He’s not saying anything, and Gem can’t help but worry, but she tries to breathe. 

She gives herself a moment to adjust to the heavy weight of anxiety in her chest that reminds her that she’s now blind. She can’t warn them against any dangers, can’t tell them when things are going wrong. This…this could go terribly wrong.

But Gem can’t bring herself to believe that this was a bad choice, not when she hears Grian breathe, “Thank you,” in the smallest voice she’s ever heard from him. He sounds relieved, somehow more relaxed, and Gem can tell even over the radio that his breathing is steadier. 

(She wonders if this is a new development, or if she just didn’t notice before)

It’s fine. This is fine. Gem can do this; she can be blind for today. What does she have to work with now? She checks them off on her fingers: the map. The activity levels. The sound and motion sensors. The information that they were given at the start. 

The sanity board. 

Gem whips her head towards the sanity board. Other than herself, in the van, Impulse’s is the highest from taking the medication. Scar is next, then Skizz.

Grian is at one percent.

Gem takes a shaky breath and presses her earpiece. “Scar, have you gotten to Grian yet?” she calls, her voice carefully controlled. There’s no point in freaking everyone out by sounding too scared. 

“Yeah, I’m there,” Scar responds, voice strained. Grian doesn’t say anything at all. 

“Okay.” Gem lets her shoulder relax. That’s good, at least. “Okay, good. Listen, I need everyone—especially Grian—to get to the door before—”

Multiple things happen all at once, before Gem gets a chance to process them. The radio cuts off with static. The door slams shut. Grian’s sanity flickers down to zero. 

The activity levels spike to ten, and Gem’s heart drops. 

“HUNTING!” she screams into the radio, despite the way her throat closes up. “It’s—it’s hunting, activity level ten, you guys gotta hide—”

She cuts off with a choke, then shakes her head. “Grian—Grian, listen, I need to turn on the cameras so I can help—”

“No!” Grian begs, even as someone shushes him frantically, and Gem can’t breathe. She needs the cameras to be on so she’s able to guide the rest of them, to direct them to hiding spots, to help them. But she can’t—won’t—go against Grian’s wishes. Not when he sounds so terrifyingly desperate. 

“Then—I’ll—” Think, think, she needs to think. “I’ll go to the window. I’ll be there in just a moment, I’ll be able to guide you guys, okay? It’ll—it’ll be okay.” 

She doesn’t give them a chance to answer—not that they would, when there’s a hunt, they need to be quiet so they don’t get killed—before she sprints out of the van, nearly knocking over Scar’s cane in her haste. She saves it from falling quickly, her heart in her throat, then turns on her heel and runs. 

The mad dash to the house is longer than she wants it to be, longer than it needs to be, if she wants to be able to help the others. She slips on the grass, slick with some sort of dew, and nearly falls, but she keeps her balance. Keep going, keep going, she chants in her head like a mantra. You have to save them. It’s your job to save them. 

She repeats it, over and over. She doesn’t stop running, doesn’t stop moving, even as her right foot lands wrong on the ground and she gasps, tendrils of sharp pain shooting up the side of her ankle as her vision sparks with white starbursts. For a moment, she thinks she’s going to black out, but she grits her teeth and forces herself to focus, move, don’t stop. 

Every step she takes burns, a searing pain that spikes all the way up her leg, only intensifying the more she’s forced to put weight on it. But she forges on, biting her tongue so hard that she tastes blood, eyes blurry with pain or panic or tears or some deadly combination of all three. 

Gem scans the side of the house for an uncovered window, one that she can see through well enough to direct the others, and her eyes lock onto one that seems to open into the living room. She nearly crashes against it when she reaches it, pressing her face against the glass in an attempt to see as best she can.

As soon as she peers frantically into the house, her mind registers a few things.

One: Impulse isn’t moving. He’s standing on one end of the living room, frozen.

Two: Scar and Grian are on the other side of the room. They’re staring at him. They aren’t moving either.

Three: the lights are flickering. The door is locked. The ghost is hunting and they aren’t moving. 

“What are you—what are you doing?” Gem screams through the window. She pounds her fist on the glass. “Hey! Hey, you have to hide!”

Gem makes eye contact with Impulse, and her breath stutters. He looks—more than the guilt that he showed her in the van. More than the fear of being caught during a hunt. This is true terror, and Gem can’t breathe.

And Grian—Grian is clutching onto Scar’s arm, and Scar is gripping onto his wrist, and they both look more scared than Gem has ever seen them.

But they’re still not moving, so Gem steels herself to act.

“Listen to me,” she barks through the radio, and she can see how the three inside the house—three of them, oh God, where’s Skizz?—startle at the sound of her voice. “Impulse, turn around, there’s a couch about four feet behind you that you can loop around. Do you have any incense on you?”

Impulse shakes his head—no, he doesn’t have incense—but he turns and hurries to the couch regardless. Gem clenches her jaw. Okay, she thinks. Impulse can protect himself, and now he’s further from Scar and Grian. Okay.

Gem bites down hard on her lip, trying to remember the layout of the house. What other rooms are there? There’s a closet in the hallway, but Skizz had reported that it’s stuffed to the brim. She’s sure that there are closets upstairs, in the bedrooms, but those are too far, aren’t they? Scar and Grian would never make it, especially if Scar’s legs are hurting today. 

What else, what else? Can’t loop the kitchen counter, that’s the ghost room. Hiding in the bathroom would be a death trap. 

The garage?

Gem’s mind pulls up an image of the garage. There’s a car in there; she knows that from the cameras. And…did she see a few lockers in there, too? 

They could be full of junk and tools. They could be locked. Gem could be completely wrong about having seen lockers in the garage.

It doesn’t matter. As the ghost’s footsteps grow louder and the lights flicker more harshly, she knows that this is their best shot.

“Scar, Grian, get to the garage,” she orders. Both men jolt, startled, but Gem doesn’t give them time to process. “Now! Out of the living room, down the hallway, second door to the left. Hide in the lockers. Go!”

Scar doesn’t move. He’s still stiff, and Gem can tell even from outside that he’s shaking, his breaths coming too quickly. But Grian, somehow, grabs his wrist and bolts.

They disappear around the corner, and Gem can’t see them anymore. The only one she can see now is Impulse, standing in a crouched position by the couch in case the ghost enters.

Gem goes through her mental checklist. Impulse is ready to loop. Scar and Grian are—hopefully—going to the garage. She doesn’t know where Skizz is. He had said he was in the basement, hadn’t he?

She clicks her earpiece and says breathlessly, “Skizz, I hope to God that you found somewhere to hide in the basement, because I can’t help you.” The words are sharp, but in a desperate way. Please, let them all be okay.

There’s nothing else she can do for them but check the door to tell them when it’s open.

She hurries to the front door, twisting the doorknob experimentally in the hopes that it would swing open. It doesn’t, and she exhales shakily. “It’s still hunting,” she speaks into the radio, trying to keep her voice steady. “Just—hang in there, guys. Hang in there.”

It feels like years but must only be minutes of pacing, of checking the door over and over and blinking back tears when it doesn’t open, before the lights stop flickering inside the house. Gem lunges for the doorknob, hands fumbling desperately to open it, and she nearly sobs when it finally swings inward.

She presses a trembling finger against her earpiece. “Hunt’s over! It’s over, is—” she chokes on her fear. Please, please let them be alive. “Is everyone okay?”

Impulse answers instantly, and it loosens something in Gem’s chest. She’s not alone in this, at least. “I’m alive.” It’s all he says, but Gem hears him moving towards the door.

“I’m here, too,” Skizz calls, and a long breath whooshes from Gem’s lungs. Skizz is safe. He found a hiding spot. “There was a nice little area in the basement that I found. The ghost never stood a chance!”

His attempt to make a lighthearted joke falls flat. Gem swallows. Okay. Okay. Now Scar and Grian? Where are they? Are they okay, did she fail—

Another short spike of static, and Scar whispers, “Uh—Grian and I are both alive. We hid in the lockers, just like you said.”

Gem leans against the doorframe with breathless relief just as Impulse comes into view. His eyes widen upon seeing her, and Gem realizes distantly that she must look like a mess. “Good,” she gasps. “That’s good.”

She must look nearly hysterical for Impulse to be approaching her with such caution. “Gem,” he says slowly, not through the radio, “are you okay?”

Gem ignores him. Scar confirmed that Grian is alive, yes, but Grian himself hasn’t spoken. He could be unconscious, or hurt, or worse.

“Can—” her throat is tight. She can hardly get the words out. “Grian, can you say something to confirm?” Please, please, she needs this. Please say something.

Another spike in the radio static, and Gem waits breathlessly. But Grian’s voice is not the one that she hears over the radio.

Scar sounds almost apologetic, almost scared when he says, “He—Grian can’t speak right now.”

What?

Breathing is getting harder. Gem’s throat is painfully dry, and it’s nearly impossible just to swallow. “What do you—what do you mean? Is he hurt? Does—should I get my first aid kit?” Her voice rises in pitch in her fear.

Everything feels too dark and too bright, like her vision has sharpened but also been shrouded by a thin, hazy film. She’s already planning her next moves; if Grian is hurt, then she needs to get the first aid kit, she needs to call a paramedic—no, no, she can’t, there’s no service here, she is the paramedic in this case—

“No, no!” Scar says hurriedly, breaking through Gem’s spiraling thoughts as if with a sledgehammer. “No, he’s physically fine, this just—happens, sometimes. When he gets overwhelmed or whatever. He’s fine. We’ll be out in a minute, and you can see for yourself.”

“He’s fine,” Gem parrots, slumping against the wall. Her head hurts. Her chest hurts. Everything hurts, and she can’t think.

“Gem?” Impulse murmurs gently. He draws closer slowly, carefully, like she’s a wild animal. “Hey, can you breathe for me, kiddo?”

“I’m breathing,” she snaps, even as her shoulders rise and fall faster and faster and her lungs burn in their desperation for air that she’s not providing. 

“I know,” Impulse soothes. “I know. And you’re doin’ really well, yeah? But you’re not looking great, you’re looking a bit…pale.”

“I’m fine,” Gem insists, even as speaking gets harder as her throat closes up. “I’m—I’m not the one we need to worry about, they’re still—they’re still in there.” 

What if it hunts again, before the others have made it out? They won’t get this lucky again, that’s for sure; even just listening at the door, even with little experience, Gem is almost positive that the ghost was fast. All of them managing to escape it was a stroke of truly good fortune, but it wouldn’t happen twice in a row. They need to leave.

“Easy, easy,” Impulse whispers. “They’re on their way out, Gem, but I need you to breathe. You’re working yourself up, I don’t want to to pass out—”

“I’m breathing, Impulse!” Gem cries again, and it’s true, she is, but somehow her knees buckle beneath her. It’s only when Impulse jolts forward to keep her from hitting the ground too forcefully that she realizes just how unsteady she had been.

Legs wobbling, vision fuzzy. Breathing in short, sharp gasps. Lightheaded, lungs burning, a headache that’s like a jackhammer through her skull. The burning pain in her ankle that had all but disappeared in the face of making sure that the others were alive. All of it together hits her like a brick, now that she has confirmation that everyone is okay. 

Delicately, as if she’s made of glass, Impulse tries to help her shift into a comfortable position sitting on the damp grass, but Gem waves him away, gritting her teeth. She doesn’t need his help; she did just fine without it, before. She can handle this herself. 

Gem braces her palms on the grass and begins the process of pushing herself to her feet. She tries to think through the steps, but gives up quickly when her mind is racing too much to process anything beyond the first part; she just needs to get her legs underneath her, making sure not to put weight on her bad ankle. That’s the very beginning. If she can make it there, she can figure things out afterwards. 

She’s sitting, slumped, on her side. She presses her palms into the ground to give herself leverage, and pushes herself so she’s kneeling on both knees. She pauses, giving herself a chance to breathe, before bring her good foot forward to plant against the ground. Slowly, slowly, she uses it to push herself into a standing position, taking great care to keep her weight off of her injured ankle. 

She nearly topples over when Skizz says, loudly, “Is she okay?” He’s just come through the doorway, and now he’s standing next to Impulse, eyebrows drawn together in concern. 

“She’s freaking out,” Impulse informs him quietly, not taking his eyes off of Gem. “Understandably, of course.” 

“I’m fine,” Gem insists hoarsely. She manages to stand up straight, even allowing some weight to be put on her bad ankle despite the way her vision whites and her ears ring. The world feels unsteady beneath her, but—she can’t let them know she got hurt on her very first investigation with them. “We need—Scar and Grian?” 

“Here,” Scar calls as he rounds the corner and leaves the house, clutching Grian to his side. Truthfully, when Gem looks at the two, Scar seems to be worse off than Grian is. Scar is trembling, pale, eyes wide and bloodshot. Grian isn’t speaking, true, but he gives them a tired smile and a short wave before wrapping his arm tightly around Scar’s shoulders in a gentle sort of comfort. Scar casts him a grateful glance before clearing his throat and repeating, “we’re here. We’re out.” 

Gem swallows. “Okay. Good. Everyone’s out, then?” She knows it’s true—she knows that there’s only five of them total, and they’re all standing here outside of the house, but Skizz nods anyways as if to give her confirmation. 

“Everyone’s out,” Impulse agrees exhaustedly. “Why don’t we head back to the van and discuss?”

Something about that jumps out to Gem. “But—we don’t know what it is?” The end of her sentence rises in pitch, turning it into a question where she had intended for it to be a statement. 

Impulse smiles at her gently. He doesn’t look at Scar or Grian, keeps his shoulders hunched away from them, but they don’t seem to care right now. There’s other things to worry about. “We might just have enough information to be able to figure it out, if we’re lucky. If we don’t, I’ll pill up and head on in with some incense to see what I can do.” 

Gem wants to argue. She wants to insist that it’s not safe to have one person enter the house by themself, that it’s risky. 

She doesn’t. Her eyes flutter briefly—exhausted—and she nods. “Okay,” she whispers. “We’ll—we can do that.” 

— / — / —  

Impulse paces back and forth in the van. Skizz leans up against the wall, next to the desk. Scar and Grian are sitting on the ground, slumped against each other with Scar’s head resting on Grian’s shoulder and Grian’s eyes following Impulse, alert. Gem is sitting in her chair at the desk, one leg pulled to her chest and propped up on the seat and the other—her injured one—stretched out in front of her. Her ankle burns, and even as she tries to keep her breathing steady, she inhales sharply every time she accidentally moves her foot. 

Gem had originally offered the chair to Scar, since he had seemed sore, but he had just shaken his head and voiced quietly that he’d rather be next to Grian. So she took it instead.

Impulse has his journal open, the one with the list of all possible ghost types and the different evidence for each one. He flips through, eyebrows furrowed. “Okay, what do we know?” he mutters to himself, shaking his head. “Spirit box and ghost writing. That’s what we have. Spirit box and ghost writing. What does that mean?” 

Skizz hums and turns a page in his own hunting journal. Gem follows along, but doesn’t say anything. Skizz informs them all, “Uh, could be Spirit, Polty, Mare, Moroi, or Deo.” He glances up at them. “Admittedly, I didn’t get to hear the ghost or see it or whatever. I…don’t have that much info.” 

Impulse shakes his head grimly. “Me neither. I was….” He casts a quick glance at Scar and Grian, then forcibly looks away. “Distracted.” 

“I thought it was normal speed?” Scar voices awkwardly, not moving from his position beside Grian. “But honestly, I’m not sure. I couldn’t really tell. It might’ve been a little fast or a little slow or something.” 

Impulse presses his lips together. “I…might have to go back in,” he realizes quietly, and Gem sees how he swallows harshly. “It’s fine, I’ll just—I’ll grab some medicine, take a smudge—”

“Did Gem see anything?” Grian rasps, and Impulse cuts off, blinking at the sudden interruption. He seems surprised that Grian spoke—maybe Grian is usually silent for longer?—but he nods quickly. 

“Gem, you got anything?” 

Gem wraps her arms around her leg and rests her cheek on her knee. She swallows and draws her eyebrows together. “I….” She winces; her voice is hoarser than she wants it to be. “What am I looking for?” 

“Anything weird,” Skizz informs her. “Anything out of the ordinary; lights being turned off more often, things being thrown, anything weird about the speed. If you noticed at what sanity it started hunting, that could help, too.” 

Gem purses her lips and clears her throat to fight against the way it threatens to close. “I…I didn’t notice the speed,” she admits. “And I wasn’t…I wasn’t really paying attention to whatever…weird stuff it was doing.” 

“That’s okay,” Impulse reassures her. “You’ll get used to it. In the meantime, I can—”

Something sparks at the edge of Gem’s mind, and she blurts, “Wait.” Impulse goes quiet, and she winces. “Sorry. But—is your sanity supposed to drain in the van?” 

Impulse straightens, and Skizz’s eyebrows shoot up. “No,” Impulse says slowly. “No, sanity should be stable when you’re in the van. Gem, was your sanity going down while you were in the van?” 

Gem shakes her head. “No, but when you came in to get the pills, yours kept going down,” she tells him, and Impulse’s eyes light up. “And once you took the meds, it stopped happening. Does that…mean anything?” 

“Yeah,” Impulse breathes. “Yeah, actually, that makes—that makes so much sense. That’s why it was slightly fast! It put a curse on me—and probably Grian, that’s why our sanity was so low—and—”

“Wait, wait, wait, hold on, homie-buddy.” Skizz holds his hand up. “You’re thinking—”

“Yes,” Impulse interrupts. “Yes, it is, Skizz, you know it is—”

“I know.” Skizz is grinning, and it’s the most genuine that he’s been all night. “I know, it makes sense, doesn’t it? It makes perfect sense!” 

Impulse is already paging through his journal with a certain amount of intensity. “What’s the last piece of evidence for it?” he mumbles to himself, scanning the page. 

Gem blinks at him and Skizz, eyes wide. 

From the ground beside her, Grian tugs on her pant leg, and she glances down at him, overwhelmed. He gives her a grin that’s some mixture of comforting and proud. “Good job,” he whispers, and his voice is still quiet but it’s there, and Gem tries to hide her grateful smile. 

“Freezing temps,” Skizz responds to Impulse’s question. “If you want, I can go on in and check—”

But Impulse is already shaking his head. “No, I trust that Gem saw what she thought she did. It’s time to leave.” He casts a glance over at Gem and locks eyes with her. “I don’t want to go back into that place if we don’t have to,” he murmurs, and it feels like he’s speaking directly to her. 

Skizz looks between the two of them, and his face softens. “Okay,” he says gently. “Let’s go home.” 

The ride home is quiet. 

Even though the others don’t seem upset with her anymore, they still don’t talk to her. She tries to get into the driver’s seat, gritting her teeth to ignore the sharp rockets of pain in her and—she’d driven the van on the way to the location, since it was her job, so it makes sense that she would drive it on the way back—but Impulse gently bats her away and takes her place. She has to bite back an argument—she’s not fragile—but she ends up nodding and limping to the back of the van, where the rest of the group is sitting. 

Scar has fallen asleep on Grian’s shoulder, in the same position they were in before. Skizz is sitting in the desk chair that Gem had been using all night. Gem just lowers herself to the ground gingerly, trying not to irritate her ankle, and curls her arms around her knees. She doesn’t say anything, and no one says anything to her, either. 

She glides her hands up and down her arms as if she were cold, even though she’s not. The feeling of a gentle touch on her skin is comforting, and if she times her breaths with the movements of her hands, then it gives her something to focus on outside of the obvious tension in the van. 

Now that the high of discovering the ghost type—Moroi, apparently, if Skizz and Impulse are right—has died down, the mood is back to the same dull, tired restlessness that it had been on the way there. It’s almost worse, now that she’s not driving the van. She has no buffer from the barrage of unease. 

It’s uncomfortable. It makes her lungs tight and her throat dry. 

At some point, maybe halfway through the drive, Skizz stands up and calls Xisuma. He paces around the van, even when Grian scolds him quietly (soft enough to not wake Scar) for being on his feet while the van was moving. Skizz dismisses him with an easy wave of his hand, then talks to Xisuma. 

Gem listens in, but only vaguely. She catches snippets of Skizz’s words: “—difficult investigation—” and “—might need a short break—” and “—meet us outside?” Besides that, all she can tell is that Xisuma agrees to what Skizz asked, and then Skizz hangs up. 

When they pull into the Hermitcraft parking lot, the sun hasn’t yet risen over the horizon. Gem realizes that the investigation had taken all night—no wonder everyone is so exhausted. It’s  only a few hours until morning, now. Xisuma is already there, looking incredibly anxious as he wrings his hands and watches them park. He meets them as they exit the van one by one, glancing frantically between all of their tired faces.

“Is everyone okay?” is the first thing he says, voice mildly high pitched in his panic. “Skizz didn’t tell me anything—just that it was a difficult investigation—”

“Everyone’s fine, X,” Impulse promises, joining them from where he’d been driving up at the front of the van. “No injuries, just…tired.”

Xisuma purses his lips and scans over all of them. Grian, who yawns but doesn’t appear to be hurt. Scar, who woke up just as they were pulling into the facility, and who is now leaning against Grian. Skizz, who just gives Xisuma a weak smile as the boss’ eyes rove over him. Impulse, who stands there patiently while he lets Xisuma scrutinize them for injuries.

Then Gem, who is still not putting weight on her right foot.

Xisuma stops. “Gem,” he says slowly, and Gem presses her lips together. “Are you hurt?”

Impulse clears his throat. “X, Gem was in the van, remember? She wasn’t in the house, she wouldn’t have gotten—”

“My ankle,” Gem divulges quietly, and Impulse freezes. “I—twisted it, when I was going to meet them at the door to the house after a hunt.”

“Gem?” Impulse whispers, but Xisuma ignores him.

“Can you put weight on it?” Xisuma asks kindly, and Gem winces. She nods anyways, even though she’s completely unsure, and shifts her weight to her injured ankle.

Almost instantly, fire shoots up the side of her leg and she gasps, white starbursts sparking in her vision. Xisuma jolts forward to steady her, catching her elbows and supporting enough of her body that she’s no longer relying on her injured ankle.

“Oh, dear Lord,” Xisuma chokes. “Gem—come with me, we’ll get you some help—”

Gem shakes her head and moves away from him, gritting her teeth. “I’m fine,” she manages. She can feel Impulse’s and Skizz’s eyes on her, tracking her closely. “I don’t need—it’s just twisted. I’ll rest it for a bit, and I’ll be fine.”

Xisuma is already shaking his head. “No, no—I’ll tell Doc, he can help you wrap it—”

“I can wrap it myself, if it needs to be wrapped,” Gem snaps, then quiets. “Sorry. I’ll—” she steals a look at the rest of her crew. Impulse looks devastated. Skizz has tears in his eyes. Grian looks horribly guilty. Scar is clutching onto his cane so tightly that Gem thinks it might snap.

She forces herself to look away from them. “I’ll be in my office,” she informs Xisuma, her tone clipped. And she brushes past him as she limps in the direction of the door.