Fic: Let it in that ray of light, 4/4
They plan and get ready the next day so they can summon the ghosts that night. They decide to use the store as the place to summon them, not just because it was big enough and has hard wood floors, but because Adam thought it was also a full circle thing. This is where it all started.
Adam goes shopping for what they will need and calls Monte to house sit Tommy for him. More for his sake than for Tommy’s. Adam just doesn’t want him to be alone right now.
Luckily, Tommy and Monte take a liking to each other and Adam slips out to go get some chalk, salt and some candles. That part’s easy enough, now he just has to find something that belonged to Caroline and Leo.
So he sneakily looks up Emily’s address and stops by, and because of Adam’s awesome people skills, he gets invited in for coffee.
He leaves an hour later having eaten way too many cookies and with a gold pocket watch tucked into his pocket. He’d totally been a thief in a past life.
Tommy’s skeptical that the pocket watch was Leo’s until he turns it over and sees the LWT carved into the back.
“Okay, what about Caroline? What about something of her's?” Tommy asks him and he looks horrible, pale and drawn, and sitting snuggled into a blanket on the couch.
“There was nothing. I looked and even asked but Emily said they sold everything a long time ago.” They start thinking of alternatives, like summoning her over her grave, when Isabelle drifts in and points at Tommy.
“You have something of Caroline’s, you dull-witted chimps.”
They both look down at the locket and then back up at each other. Tommy’s shoulders start shaking and then they are laughing and rolling into each other on the couch.
“We are so stupid!” Adam cries and then starts giggling again when Monte comes in from the kitchen with a plate full of sandwiches.
“Well, I knew that but why are we laughing?” Monte offers them a sandwich and Adam makes Tommy take one.
“Nothing,” says Adam, finally getting under control, “Just stupidity nerves.”
Tommy grins at him and eats his sandwich.
Adam and Monte start going over the details, making sure they have everything planned out the best they can. Tommy tunes them out, finding it hard to concentrate, sit up and eat a sandwich at the same time. Tommy’s been sick, really sick, before and this is about a hundred times worse. He aches all over and just wants to crawl into bed and sleep. Only he’s too terrified he’ll never wake up again if he does and it’s beginning to be an effort not to break down. Instead, he clings to Adam like a drowning man with a life preserver and tries not to think about how apt that analogy really is.
Tommy’s brought back to the conversation when Adam says to Monte, “Just gently touch it with a finger.”
Tommy looks up and sees Monte hovering in front of him. He gives Tommy a smile. “Adam wants me to touch the locket?”
“Oh,” Tommy says and moves his shirt out of the way. Monte places his index finger over the blue jewel and touches it lightly.
Monte doesn’t pull back. He just looks over to Adam and says, “It’s weirdly warm.” He takes his hand away and wipes it on his pants. “And you’re right. It feels gross.”
Adam exchanges a look with Tommy. “So it didn’t feel hot to you? Like burning hot?” Adam asks Monte.
Monte gives him a funny look. “No, just warm. Why?”
Adam’s silent for a while before saying, “No reason,” and then starts a conversation with Monte about how unnatural the locket feels to them. Tommy looks at Adam curiously before tuning out of the conversation again and concentrates on staying awake.
After Monte takes the dishes back to the kitchen Adam pulls Tommy closer to his side and wraps his arms around him. “Hey, you okay?”
Tommy settles back against him with a contented sigh. “Yeah, just nervous, I guess.” He grabs Adam’s hand and holds it against his chest. After a minute he decides to air his concerns he’s had since Monte got here. “Adam, are you sure about this? Monte seems to be worried about you.” Tommy turns around to face him. “It’s not going to hurt you is it?”
Adam doesn’t answer and Tommy starts to get really worried when Adam finally says, “No, it shouldn’t hurt me.”
Tommy’s not reassured at all. “Then why is Monte about to have kittens he’s so worried? Adam, if something happens to you I won’t-” Tommy stops abruptly. He wants to sound angry but doesn’t have the energy so it comes out weak and vaguely pleading. “Adam, just don’t do anything stupid. It’s not worth it.”
Adam pulls him back against him again so they’re not facing each other. Tommy goes willingly as Adam cuddles him to his chest but hears the tight-laced anger in his words as he says against his ear, “You mean you’re not worth it? How about you let me decide what you’re worth to me? I think that’s best for everyone involved, yes?”
Tommy doesn’t know what to say to that besides, “What about you? It goes both ways you know.”
Adam kisses him behind his ear and says, “Then it’s a good thing nothing bad is going to happen to either of us.”
“I’m going to hold you to that,” Tommy turns and nuzzles along his jaw and feels it when Adam smiles.
“I’m going to hold you to a lot of things,” Adam whispers against Tommy's mouth and then kisses the laughter out of his mouth.
Adam makes a big circle with chalk in the front room of Tommy’s pawn shop and then lines it with salt. “It’s to keep the ghosts in,” Adam tells Tommy, who’s leaning against the check-out counter. “I really don’t want to risk possession and this should keep them in.” Adam doesn’t miss Tommy’s head tilt at should.
Monte comes over with the candles and puts them on the circle, one for each direction.
Adam looks at Tommy. “Ready?”
Tommy comes to stand beside Adam and with what looks like more energy than he has says forcefully, “Hell, yeah. I want this thing off.”
Adam grins at him and then Monte’s done lighting the candles and Adam puts a hand over Caroline’s locket on Tommy’s chest. It burns him and it takes everything he has not to pull away. He grimaces in pain and starts to summon Caroline.
“I call on the spirit Caroline Turner,” Adam’s voice rings out and he only feels a little stupid. He jerks his hand away form the locket when the pain gets too much to handle. “Caroline, can you come here, please.”
Adam says it a few more times and he’s starting to feel really stupid when Monte hits him on the back of the head. “You’re a medium, dumbass. Use your gift.”
Adam’s confused for a minute and then really feels like a dumbass. It’s a miracle he can dress himself in the morning with this much stupidity running through him. “Oh.”
Monte backs away again with an amused look and Adam closes his eyes. He looks around in the darkness for that thing, that otherness, that is always inside him. He finds it easily, just humming in the background, and pulls until it opens and floods through him in a rush. Adam sucks in a breath and it feels like he’s drowning in cold water and he pushes, calling out, “Caroline? Caroline Turner, please come here.”
Adam knows it worked the moment he says her name and he feels an answering pull. He opens his eyes and sees her standing in the circle, looking confused.
Adam looks at Tommy, who’s pale and breathing raggedly, and grabs Tommy’s hand in his own burnt and stinging one. He squeeze reassuringly and turns back to Caroline.
“Caroline, we need your help.” Adam starts and her eyes snap to his. She looks younger than he thought she would be. Dark hair around a heart-shaped face and she doesn’t look evil at all, she looks scared. Her eyes dart to the locket on Tommy and she visibly flinches.
“The locket,” she whispers.
“Caroline, how do we remove the locket? Tell us how to reverse the curse.” Adam’s starting to get tired already. It feels like she’s draining him, pulling all that cold water energy out of him.
“I can’t,” she whispers again. “I’m sorry, I can’t.” She still looks scared.
“Why?” Adam asks and then because there’s not much time says, “Isabelle, tell her the deal.”
Isabelle appears beside him and he’s never seen such angry sadness. “You killed me,” she tells an almost crying Caroline. “You killed me and you’re about to kill someone else if you don’t tell them how to stop it.”
Caroline does start crying then and Adam really doesn‘t care. “Tell us. Or I’ll summon Leo and tell him what you did.”
“I can’t,” Caroline wails, ‘It will release her too!” She stops crying and looks at Isabelle. “You can’t have him. You can’t.”
“Even in death you don’t want me to have him?” Isabelle sneers, “Caroline, let it go. You already won.”
Adam feels like he’s about to pass out, but fucks it, and grabs a hold of the watch in his pocket and calls, “Leo! Leo Turner, come here.” He feels another pull and it almost sends him to his knees if it wasn’t for Tommy’s shaking hand still holding his.
He hears a male voice, “Isabelle?” then, “Caroline? What’s going on?” He hears Isabelle start to explain from behind a haze and then he hears Caroline cry out again. Tommy brings him back to himself with a jerk and a worried, “Adam!”
Adam nods and turns back to the scene it front of him and it’s like a fucking ghost soap opera. Days of Our AfterLives. All My Dead Children. Adam snickers to himself and decides it’s time to interrupt. “Tell me how to save him.” Adam gets their attention and adds, “Or I swear I will make your afterlife hell, Caroline. Don’t fuck with me. Just tell me.”
Caroline looks at a completely wrecked looking Leo and says in a small voice, ”You already did,” and then adds, “You’ll need a knife.” She stares intently at Adam, “And someone who loves him.”
Luckily, Adam has both. He bends down and rummages in his bag of supplies and pulls out a pocket knife he stowed in there. He’s a fucking boy scout, is what he is.
He turns back to Caroline, and has to grab onto Tommy to stop himself from falling. They both falter under their combined weight but stay standing. Hurry, they need to hurry. “Okay, now what.”
“Cut yourself and smear the blood on the locket. Then repeat after me.” Caroline sounds shaky and Adam turns to Tommy quickly, vision blurring, and he vehemently fights it off.
Tommy gets out a protested, “Adam,” but he’s already slicing into his hand and then grabbing onto the locket, his blood slipping wetly as the blue jewel sears into his cut palm. Adam can’t help but let out a cry of pain and instinctively tries to yank his hand back but it won’t budge. His hand is stuck to the burning locket and it feels like it’s on fire. Adam’s eyes start to water from the pain of it, but with a panicked yell from Tommy he pulls it together enough to listen to Caroline.
Caroline starts saying something in another language. Latin? Romanian? Adam doesn’t know but repeats what she says as slowly as he dares and prays he doesn’t fuck it up.
Tommy’s looking at him wide-eyed as Adam finishes repeating Caroline. “A permite lui soul remain. A permite pe el energie.”
Adam doesn’t know if it worked but then feels the locket unhook and fall into his hand. His hand feels like it was dipped in acid but he stares down at the locket, cold and nonthreatening now, and says, “You may go. Leave in peace.” Then blacks out before he hits the floor.
~~~~~
Adam wakes up hungover and with an intense stinging pain in his right hand. He lifts his hand and finds it covered in some kind of ointment and it looks disgusting, red and slightly blistered. He tries to sit up, confused, and sees Tommy sleeping in a chair beside him and he remembers exactly what happened. He realizes he is on an old couch in one of the shop’s back rooms and weighted down by a bunch of pillows and blankets. He’s weak and shaky and it feels like he slept for a week. Or at least that’s what his mouth tastes likes. Adam grimaces and tries to sit up again to no avail. That’s when he notices Isabelle standing in the doorway.
“Hey, what are you still doing here?” Adam’s voice is a croak and he clears it uselessly.
“I just wanted to say thank you. You freed me.” And she smiles at him, a real genuine smile and Adam can’t help but return it.
“You’re welcome. Even if I had ulterior motives for doing it,” Adam says with a look to the scrunched, sleeping Tommy.
“I don’t mind.” Isabelle actually shrugs at him. Then also looking at Tommy she says, “Take care of him. He’s kind of hopeless, isn’t he?”
“Yes,” Adam says with a find smile, “I will.” And with a last happy look at Tommy she vanishes. Adam knows she’s gone for good.
Adam’s still smiling when he notices Tommy’s looking at him. “Hey, you okay?”
“Shouldn’t I be asking you that question?” Tommy sits up and eyes him. “How do you feel?” he finally asks.
“Hungover,” Adam says truthfully. “How long was I out?”
“About sixteen hours.” Tommy looks expressionless.
“Really? Damn, no wonder I feel so bad.” He does feel like he got run over by a space ship and rode it to Mars.
Tommy doesn’t look amused. “You almost died. Your heart stopped.”
“It did?” Adam doesn’t remember this. He would totally remember this.
“Monte brought you back. I freaked out an almost called an ambulance. Monte said it wouldn’t help and we just had to wait. Then he babbled to me about energy or the force or whatever, and you basically overused your gift. Way overused.” Tommy says all this stoically, no emotion whatsoever.
“Huh.” Adam has no idea what to say to that.
Tommy walks toward him and kneels down to his level. “If you ever do something that stupid again I will fucking end you. If you ever scare me like that again I will rip off your arms and beat you senseless with them. And then dump your useless body in a river. Got it?”
The tightly controlled rage and emotion in Tommy’s voice breaks and Adam looks down. He swallows hard and says, “Got it.”
“All right.” Tommy softens and runs a hand over Adam’s jaw. “Thank you for saving my life.”
“You’re welcome.” Adam says softly.
Adam sits up with Tommy’s help and then Tommy leaves and comes back with pills and a glass of water in his hands. He helps Adam take them and asks quietly, “How’s your hand?”
“Hurts like a bitch,” Adam says with a frown.
Tommy looks pained and incredibly guilty. “I’m so sorry, Adam. I had no idea you would have to do that,” Tommy says and then won’t look him in the eye.
“Hey, no,” Adam says and tries to get Tommy to look at him. “Don’t do that. Look at me.” Tommy finally does and Adam tells him softly, “The locket burned me for a reason, you know.”
Tommy looks surprised. “What? What do you mean?”
“It knew I could break the curse. So it tried to keep me away.” Adam stares fixedly at Tommy. “Something Caroline hated and feared in Leo.”
Tommy just looks at Adam baffled until comprehension crosses his face and he says in a shaky voice, “His love for Isabelle.”
Adam smiles and nods his head. “Yeah.”
“Y-you,” Tommy says in a strangled voice, unable to finish. “You really, I,” Tommy stops again and then blurts out, “But how could it know?”
Adam shrugs, “Caroline put her will and emotions into the curse. It turned into an extension of her. An she was terrified of Leo’s feelings for Isabelle. So the locket feared love.”
Tommy looks dazed and says, “Oh.” And then like he can’t hold it in anymore. “You really love me? Like really?”
Adam takes Tommy’s chin in his uninjured hand and kisses him on the mouth. He pulls back and lifts a brow. “What do you think?”
A grin spreads slowly across Tommy’s face and he says impishly, “Yeah, you totally love me.”
Adam throws his head back and laughs. “I don’t know why.” He grins at Tommy until he sees the the locket lying on a table by the couch. He suppresses a shudder. “I wonder what will happen to them. Caroline and Leo, I mean.”
Tommy follows his gaze to the locket and shakes his head. “They vanished when you told them to.” Tommy looks back at Adam. “It’s sad though. I feel sorry for Caroline. She really did love him in her own fucked up way.”
Adam looks at Tommy in surprise. “Love? No, she wanted Leo for herself. For her own selfish reasons. She didn’t even care about what he wanted. That’s not love. That’s ownership.”
“Maybe,” Tommy looks deep in thought. “But being in love doesn’t make a person perfect. Or stop someone from being horribly wrong or hurtful. If anything it makes it worse. The stakes so incredibly high to get it right. And the risk of having it all or losing it all placed firmly in your own hands. In the choices you make.”
Adam turns over what Tommy said in his mind and stupidly comes up with Shakespeare or his movie anyway. “So what... ‘come ruin or rapture?’”
Tommy smiles and says, “Something like that.”
“And they say I’m a melodramatic sap,” Adam teases him. “You do realize Caroline murdered someone and almost killed you, right?”
“I didn’t say she was right or, you know, not evil,” Tommy says, laughing at Adam. “Just that I feel sorry for her. She really was kind of pathetic.”
Adam hums at him. “Tommy, if this is some weird way of saying you love me, too, it’s not coming out very clear.” Adam glares at him. “Want to try again?”
Tommy beams at him. “You’re the psychic. You tell me.”
Adam just grins at him.
Tommy grins back and takes his hand. “Now, come on, I want to take you home.”
six months later...
Dating a psychic medium has its perks. For example, Adam is an excellent judge of character, he knows all the places to be or not to be, is a warning system for danger, (like that time he stopped Tommy from almost eating a bee that was hidden in his Cobb salad) and he has a knack for finding lost things. (especially Tommy’s car keys, although, that might just be because he knows Tommy has a tendency to lose them)
It also has its downsides. Like right now. Adam is naked and spread out across the bed for Tommy to feast is eyes and mouth on. Tommy’s resting between Adam’s thighs and has been thoroughly enjoying making Adam pant and moan down at him. Getting Adam to lose control has quickly become his favorite pastime. The fact that it wasn’t easy made it all the better. So it’s quite understandable for Tommy to be disgruntled when, licking and biting up Adam’s inner thigh, Adam goes tense and quiet above him.
Tommy looks up and follows Adam’s irritated head shake to the corner of the room.
“God dammit, who is it now? Religious old lady or creepy perverted guy?” Tommy asks while Adam makes an abbreviated shooing motion with his hand.
Adam makes a frustrated sound. “Religious old lady,” he tells him reluctantly.
“Well, make her go away like you did the last time.” Tommy’s beginning to suspect being a medium is harder than he had first thought as a lot of ghosts don’t like being told what to do.
“I don’t want to repent again! I like gay sex!” Adam wails sullenly down at him and Tommy tries not to laugh.
“Come on, it was only twenty Hail Mary's.” Tommy tries to keep the amusement out of his voice but the dirty look Adam throws him tells him he failed. “Then tell her you can’t repent gay sex if you haven’t finished said gay sex.”
Adam keeps glaring down at him and Tommy says, “Hey, I’m on a hour lunch break and have a giant shipment of drums coming in later. And as you are my lunch today I would like to go back to eating it, yes?”
Adam’s eyes go a little dark and he mutters something Tommy can’t hear before relying what he said to the ghost. “Twenty,” Adam says to the corner and then, “Twenty-five or I’ll find your grave and pee on it.”
Tommy stifles a laugh in Adam’s thigh and knows it worked when Adam relaxes beneath him. Adam nudges him with a hand on his head. “Now get back to work.” Tommy gladly obliges.
When Tommy’s exhausted and almost passed out on top of Adam he thinks of something. “What if I got a cat?”
Adam’s answer comes muffle and almost incoherent, “Why?”
Tommy lifts head. “I thought ghosts were scared of cats?”
Adam shakes beneath him in laughter. “No, if anything they like cats better than dogs.”
Tommy finally rolls off him and asks, “Why’s that?”
“Because cats don’t bark at them.” Adam opens his eyes and smiles at him.
“Then maybe we should get a dog?” Tommy asks hopefully. Dogs are awesome and they should totally have one.
“We?” Adam looks over at him and Tommy suddenly becomes very engrossed in the comforter in front of him.
“Yeah, I mean, we could go to the shelter and pick one out,” Tommy glances quickly up at Adam then back down again. “Then we could bring it home and then, um, you could not leave.?”
There is a minute of silence and then Tommy feels a hand on his chin lifting it up and Adam’s smiling at him. “Tommy, are you asking me to move in with you?”
“Maybe?” Tommy eyes dart down again and Adam jerks his chin up. “Yes?” Tommy sounds hesitant even to his own ears and says again more firmly, “Yes.”
“I would love to.” Adam sounds ecstatic and it makes Tommy grin in return.
“Can we get a dog too?” Tommy asks and falls forward and presses his mouth to Adam’s, who huffs out a laugh.
“Yeah, we can get a dog too.” Adam pulls him back in for another kiss and Tommy loses time.
Adam does move in with him and they do get a dog. And a cat. Sadly, neither of them get rid of their ghost problem. Adam’s looking into alternative methods in between bouts of Hail Mary’s. Tommy valiantly tries to help and doesn’t laugh at him. At least not too much.
The End