A Ghost Party For Ghosts [Extravaganza 2019]
Mar 1, 2019 4:49:34 GMT
Post by Manchee on Mar 1, 2019 4:49:34 GMT
This is my final Extravaganza piece, this time for eldestoyster. It's based on the prompt of someone crashing a party and finding it harder to leave, but there's also a little more in there that you'll just have to read to see!
As the sun sets on Ecruteak, shadows cast from the naked tree branches crisscross against the old wooden houses and make their thatched roofs look like scales from a crimson dragon. Most residents have already retreated inside for the night to escape the bitter cold settling over northern Johto. With the darkening sky, dots of light begin to glow from house to house, a virus of light spreading through the city and illuminating the stone streets with a warm glow. Residential areas like this don’t use much street lighting in a city as old as Ecruteak. In the distance, the artificial fluorescent light of the Pokémon Center pokes out among the outskirts.
Foster takes a deep breath of the stinging air. He’s nervous. It has taken months of convincing himself that he can be here. The first time it was still too new, too fresh in his mind to face it. He told himself he would make it by the end of summer, but of course he didn’t. Told himself that work at the mart needed him on account of all the trainers trying to make it through Mahogany before the early autumn started to make the trek north as unpleasant as they’ve heard it can be. But of course that was just an excuse, and autumn turned to winter and he didn’t come back to Ecruteak until November, the last time he attempted to do this, at which point he made it to this street and returned home with a promise to force himself back out against the cold the next chance he got.
Loads of people do this every month. Hot or cold, rain or shine. It’s part of the healing process. Then again, so is depression, and if family history wasn’t enough to pass it on to him, this sure was. He can’t remember the last time he went out with any of his friends from school. After graduating, most of them went out and tried to make a life for themselves in the big cities, or at least in the other small towns around Johto. Anywhere would be more welcoming than small-minded Mahogany. Why he hasn’t done the same is beyond him.
(But it’s not, not really, it’s right here down the street, Foster, you just have to deal with it and let yourself live for once in your goddamn waste of a life)
The scraping of steel on stone kickstarts him to take the first step forward. The rest come more easily as long as he lets his mind think of Palatine trailing behind him, rusted stockless frame edging along unnervingly close to the ground. Foster wonders how long it will take for him to be used to Pal’s habit of not floating high enough off the ground for xyr anchor to not constantly bump into everything. You’d think a ghostly piece of seaweed might have enough brains to choose a discarded piece of metal to inhabit that it can actually lift, but apparently not all dhelmise are as smart as you’d think.
As they make it farther than on previous attempts, Foster begins to doubt himself once again. The sickly feeling begins as a tiny ball in the pit of his stomach and is up in his throat before he knows it, setting his whole body on edge. It’s almost enough to turn around and rent a room at the center instead of continuing, but something keeps him moving forward. Maybe it’s the chill of the air stabbing at his bones or a subconscious part of his mind forcing him on. Either way, he comes to a stop at the end of the street when he sees his destination down the next block.
A few people are already there, living shadows among the trees and wrought iron fencing. Even though they are unknown to him, seeing other people gives him enough confidence to keep walking. As he gets closer the sound of somber music begins, faint at first but calmingly more present by the time he comes to the main entrance, a large open gate surrounded in lit candles that cast a wavering light across the metal letters arched a few feet above his head: “ECRUTEAK CEMETARY.”
Before he can convince himself that this is too much, too weird of an event to attend, and that he will come back during the day like any normal person, a duo draped in moth-eaten shawls appear from the shadows. Their wrinkled skin and sagging eyes hide their true age, but Foster guesses that they must both be years beyond any guess he would make. Despite their eerie appearance, both of their faces welcome him with kind smiles that ease his thoughts of bailing on tonight.
“Hello,” one of them says in a voice not immediately male nor female.
“Uh, hi,” Foster replies. He didn’t expect to talk to many people here, but now that he can see past the gates and make out at least a dozen people milling around between the graves, some silently mourning and others chatting away, he’s not as surprised that this event is advertised as a party.
The other one says, “Please take your time tonight,” and Foster realizes he isn’t going to be able to discern if these two are real people at all. They could be a pair of lovers, or twins, or lifelong friends, or one being entirely. After the things he’s heard of in the world, he’s not sure if any explanation would surprise him at all. The figure continues.
“There are no expectations here. You can find yourself among new friends or disappear into the shadows. No one will judge you as long as you respect the other guests.”
“If you need assistance with anything tonight, you can find us right here.”
At that, the two of them stop speaking. Foster looks back and forth at them, waiting for more, but nothing else needs to be said. With a sharp nod, he crosses the gates. His shoes find a dirt path made rock solid by the cold. The cemetery looks unfamiliar in the dark, but Foster remembers the correct path well enough. He begins to walk down it, but a sudden wave of nerves comes over him and he starts to return from where he came. He passes people crouched over headstones, wandering the trails, and talking to one another in the dark corners untouched by candlelight. A table by the gates has a collection of drinks and snacks available which he takes advantage of to give his shaking hands something to do.
Maybe this was the wrong idea, or the wrong time to try something like this. Grief takes a while to process, right? It is entirely plausible that he’s just not ready to let himself face these emotions. It hasn’t even been a year, he reminds himself. No one would judge him for turning around now.
The thought doesn’t have time to form much further, though, because at that moment a woman walks up to the table. Foster is about to walk away and give her some privacy, but she steps in his path and forces him to look her in the eyes. They are mostly hidden by the dark of night, but their expression is gentle.
“I saw you turn around and come over here,” she tells him. “I wanted to make sure you were okay.”
“I’m fine,” he says, looking down at the ginger ale he picked up from the table.
“We’re all fine.”
She says it in a matter-of-fact way that makes him uncomfortable at the thought that everyone here is probably going through something similar to himself. The smell of Pal’s rust mingles with the ginger ale and unsettles his stomach.
The woman pulls out her phone and after tapping around for a moment she turn it so he can see what she has pulled up. Even with the brightness turned all the way down, the screen is glaring in the dark.
“This is me and Claudia,” she says.
In front of him is a professional photo of the two of them, posed in the middle of a flowery field with what must be their partner pokémon beside them. The one he assumes is Claudia (because even in the dark, he can tell that the person standing next to him is not as pale as he one on the right side of the picture) has short red hair cut up to her ears and a smattering of freckles across her face. Her smile is all teeth framed by lipstick too dark for her face but that matches the dress she’s wearing and the stunky at her feet.
“We were together for four years before she passed, and that was two years ago now. I’m still not over it.”
Foster isn’t sure what to say. Sorry sounds too insensitive and he only just met her to say that he understands, so he remains silent. The woman minimizes the picture and scrolls through a few others. The angle she holds her phone allows Foster to see her screen. He tries not to watch what she’s doing but it’s hard to look away when he can’t see anything besides the glow of her device. There must be hundreds of pictures in the album she is going through: late-night snaps surrounded by pillows and blankets, solo shots, blurry candids, and selfies in front of the Olivine Lighthouse. By the looks of it, they spent a lot of time in Olivine, which would make sense – even being from the most conservative place on the Tohjo peninsula, Foster is aware of how LGBT-friendly places like Olivine and Goldenrod are.
“You two looked really happy,” he tells her. It hits him that that might not be the best thing to say, but she nods and locks her phone so it stops shining in their faces.
“She was the best,” the woman says. “I’m Flora, by the way.”
“Foster,” he tells her, reaching out and shaking her hand.
They make small talk as more people come through the gates and join the party. Flora never asks him why he is here tonight, which he is grateful for. Even when a few people she knows join their conversation, no one asks him anything about himself except where he got Palatine.
“I’ve never actually seen one in-person before,” a guy in his mid-twenties says as he gazes at xem with amazement and absentmindedly picks at his face. His own duskull floats around nearby, bumping between dead trees branches. “Do you have other ghost-types?”
Foster shakes his head. “No, Pal’s my only one. Xe was a gift from my aunt.”
“Wow, lucky you! Do you know where she managed to find a dhelmise?”
“She has connections,” he explains coolly, used to talking about how he ended up lugging around his partner, “I think someone sent it to her from Alola.”
“Man! I wish I had an aunt like that. You’ve probably got the only dhelmise in all of Johto.”
According to his aunt, Pal was the only one in Johto and Kanto. Some organization back in the eighties started to catalog every dhelmise in captivity for historical purposes since they carry around real anchors from old ships. The database is public to anyone with internet, and one day Foster did a search for others in the region. He wasn’t surprised to find that most dhelmise are owned in regions where there is a large dependency on traveling by boat or ship, making Johto a region with a scarce population. There used to be a few over near Olivine and Cianwood, but they were released back to the ocean when their owners passed or could no longer care for them.
Over the next hour, people come and go as they please. Some say hi to Flora or one of the other people congregating by the snack table and others disappear down the paths to be alone. As much as Foster wants to make another attempt at getting farther down the path, it does him good to make easy conversation with these people. They’re totally non-judgmental. Soon he finds himself asking non-invasive questions like where people are from, if they have gone on a trainer journey, what pokémon they own. He learns that Marcus – the boy who seems to be unable to not pick at his acne – comes from Kanto and is here to visit family. Another person is from right here in Ecruteak and has been coming to the party for years so her duskull can be around other friendly ghost-types.
It’s all going well until a familiar voice calls out from not too far away.
“Foster!”
The noise is jarring against the calm atmosphere of the night.
Oh no.
“Foster! Can anyone help me find my son?” the man asks. “His name is Foster Spearing.”
From over the heads of the people around him, Foster can see a man standing just inside the gates on the main path. He holds back from groaning in front of everyone at the sight of his dad: Everett Spearing, in all his balding glory, looking around frantically while candlelight reflects off of his head. Before he dad can make any more of a disturbance, Foster rushes past the people he’d been talking to, Pal trailing slowly behind.
“Dad!” he says in a hushed whisper. “What are you doing here?”
“What am I doing here? I’m making sure you’re okay,” he says, his voice a little too loud, too angry. Foster guides him to the side of the path so they can speak under the scattered cover of a bare oak tree.
“Why didn’t you just call me? I’m fine,” he says, his voice shaky with nerves. He can feel lingering eyes watching them.
“You wouldn’t answer your phone.”
Oops.
He’d forgotten that he turned it off on his walk through Ecruteak. If he had gotten so much as a text or Snapchat it would have enough of a sign to turn around and try to hitch a ride back home.
“I’m fine, Dad. Just… hanging out with people for now.”
The look in his dad’s eyes soften and Foster legitimately feels back for making him drive all the way out here. It’s bad enough that the car is on the brink of falling apart, but it doesn’t even have proper heat right now. The drive must have been hell with the temperatures around Mt. Mortar during this time of year. But here he is anyway, dutifully doing everything he can to make sure his son is okay.
“Foster… I’m glad you’re okay.” His eyes soften, but he refuses to let them so much as glisten, even hidden in the dark. “Please don’t do that again. I honestly thought… I don’t know.”
He shakes his head. They stand there facing each other but looking past one another at the dead trees, the headstones marking where even more dead people are buried, and those very much alive and chatting away like it’s totally normal to be at an event like this. Foster knows his dad won’t admit what he’s thinking, and why would he? They haven’t had a normal, honest conversation in nearly a year.
A welcome and familiar voice pierces their silence.
“Everything okay?” Flora asks.
No, it’s not, Foster wants to say.
“We’re fine,” he says instead. His eyes meet hers and he knows that they’re both thinking of what she said when they first met earlier that night. We’re all fine. She must come here a lot, he determines. She’s awfully comfortable with making people feel the weight of why they’re here.
“Just checking,” she tells them calmly. “I’ll be over by the drinks again if you need anything.”
After she’s gone his dad finally asks, “What the hell is this?”
His eyes look around like he’s only taking it all in for the first time. He must not have spoken to the duo at the gates.
“It’s a ghost party… for ghosts,” Foster clarifies, like that explains anything. When his dad finally looks him in the eye he’s forced to go into detail. “People bring their ghost-types here to socialize and be in an environment that they like. They spend so much time around the living-”
“-that they lose touch with death,” his dad finishes for him, fighting himself from rolling his eyes. He’s heard it enough from his sister, he doesn’t need to hear it from his son.
“Mhm.” They remain silent for a moment before Foster adds, “And some people come here because… they want to talk to people who have passed. It helps with all of the ghosts floating around to feel like they’re listening.”
“Jesus, that’s…” but his dad catches his raised eyebrows and says, “Morbid.”
Some people still shoot glances at them like they’re ruining the vibe of the party. At this point Foster doesn’t care. If a text would have been enough of a sign not to come tonight, this is certainly more than enough.
“We should just go home.”
“Are you sure?”
The way that he says it asks an underlying question that neither of them want to bring up. Foster just nods and starts to head towards the gates. It takes a second but his dad starts to silently follow.
Inside the ’94 Vision the temperature feels even colder than standing outside, so Foster has chosen the latter in order to let Pal be unconfined from xyr ball. Meanwhile, Everett Spearing tries unsuccessfully to start the car. Among the sputtering of the engine Foster can hear him swearing like he’s never sweared before. The eyeball hovering above Pal’s anchor watches intently at the car’s mechanic noises, probably trying to decipher the foreign language.
When at last his dad gives up and steps out of the car, the cold has bitten into Foster’s hands despite being shoved deep inside his pockets. It would probably be a good idea to find a diner or get back to the Pokémon Center soon. The parking lot is only down the street from the cemetery so it wouldn’t be too difficult of a walk back into the center of the city.
“I’m going to call your mom and see if she can ask around and borrow a car,” his dad tells him after a frustrated sigh. “Do you want to go back to the party?”
“I’m fine.”
Everett sighs again. Underneath it all, he feels bad for intruding on his son’s life. But… going into Foster’s room and not seeing him or Pal brooding in the dark struck him deep inside. It didn’t help that his calls kept going straight to voicemail, either. In the moment it didn’t feel like an overreaction to risk driving all the way out here - in the moment it felt like Tacoma all over again. All of the dread that filled him the moment he saw Con Wicke walk through the door of his parents’ house rushed back into his memory and nothing seemed to rationalize him. He may be an older parent, but he’s kept up with technology enough to know how to pry into his son’s life. If he hadn’t found the webpage on Foster’s computer for the cemetery event he’s not sure what he would have done.
“Are you sure? It’s going to be a while.” When he gets no response, his mind falls on a thought. “How did you get here?”
Foster’s hand tenses around the baggie of weed in his pocket that he bought from his dealer before asking for a ride past Mt. Mortar. This is definitely not the moment he would like to admit that to his father.
“I asked someone for a ride,” he mumbles. “I’m actually going to go back to the cemetery. I think they had hot chocolate. You want some?”
It’s not much, but it works.
“I’m alright. Might find some place to wait until your mom can get out here.”
With a nod, Foster starts heading back to the party as his dad pokes around on his phone to call his wife.
It hasn’t been more than half an hour after Foster walks back through the gates and shakily dispenses hot chocolate into a styrofoam cup for himself when he’s approached from behind.
“Hey, kid,” he hears his dad say. The people he had been talking to must have seen Everett the first time he showed up because they immediately disperse.
Before Foster can have any kind of reaction his dad says, “I finally got through to your mom. Apparently something is happening on the Mortar. They’ve got the whole route closed off.”
“What- what does that mean?”
His dad shrugs and says, “I guess we’re staying in the city for the night.”
It takes a beat for the words to sink in, but when they do it’s like Foster’s world comes into focus. He sees his dad staring back at him with the defeated look on his face that hasn’t seemed to disappear since last year, except now... now it makes sense. The weariness in his eyes, the grief holding his shoulders down. He had honestly thought his dad gave up, but in reality it's all of the same things Foster is feeling: the guilt that he should have done something different and the anguish of losing someone who was so ingrained in your life and the meaningless of life when you've seen someone so young disappear from existence.
Well, shit.
Foster can’t do anything but sigh, and when he does his breath catches on its way out. The tiny cracks that have been forming on the walls he built up start to spread, and when his dad’s eyes narrow and he says, “Foster? Are you alright?” everything shatters.
“No,” he sobs.
Some time later, when he can’t feel his fingers or toes anymore, Foster hears footsteps come down the path. When they stop in front of him and his dad, he looks up and sees Flora. She cautiously extends two cups of hot chocolate for them to take. The warmth coming off of the cup stings his hands and the sweet scent of the drink is enough to bring him back to reality. Flora knowingly doesn’t say anything and just walks away back down the path. Neither of them drink form their cups but the disturbance gets them moving again.
They move silently down the path with Everett’s arm around his son. They both know the way, even though they haven’t been here since the funeral. You don’t forget, no matter how long the time between visits becomes. Knowing that they are returning for the first time brings small tears to their eyes. Not that they’ve stopped crying since Foster broke down - they stood there with their arms around each other, sobbing as men should, until Everett brought them a little ways down the path to sit against a tree and let it out. It was probably the first time either of them have fully let in what happened, Foster realizes.
It doesn’t take long to reach the headstone, the last one in a row towards the back. None of the ghost-types have come this far out, so it’s completely silent. The weight of everything is able to loom over them as they look down at its surface. It stares back at them, unmoving; a solid marker of what they’ve lost.
“Hi, Jonas,” Foster manages to say. The rest of what he’d like to say becomes lost to him, though. Instead he stands and stares down at the engraved letters until they don’t look like words any more.
Everett’s voice is shaky when he starts to speak.
“We both miss you… a lot,” he says. “Your family does, too. I talk to your dad every now and then. He’s still working at the National Park, and your mom-”
“Aquaria is living at the park now,” Foster jumps in. He turns to his dad and says, “His family thought it would be better if she could roam around freely. Vaporeon don’t like captivity. At least this way his dad could check on her regularly.”
Everett smiles. Together, they take turns telling Jonas what’s been going on since his passing. It’s awkward, for sure, but the guilt welling inside Foster is eased the longer he talks. It will never be okay that he lost his friend at such a young age, but he knows that it will get easier as time passes. No one will be able to replace Jonas, either, but that doesn’t mean Foster should keep himself barricaded in Mahogany for the rest of his life.
There’s more to life than that. Better to start living now while he still has the chance.
This was honestly I lot of fun to write. Ghost Town and all of its parts changed my perspective on fic writing and I feel honored having the opportunity to take a stab at this canon. (I hope I got Everett's general age right. I tried to look through Ghost Town for a specific age at that time but was unsuccessful and had to make an educated guess. From the little bit of him in GT I could see him being an older father, but that's just me.) Aaaaand I'll stop rambling.
A Ghost Party For Ghosts
As the sun sets on Ecruteak, shadows cast from the naked tree branches crisscross against the old wooden houses and make their thatched roofs look like scales from a crimson dragon. Most residents have already retreated inside for the night to escape the bitter cold settling over northern Johto. With the darkening sky, dots of light begin to glow from house to house, a virus of light spreading through the city and illuminating the stone streets with a warm glow. Residential areas like this don’t use much street lighting in a city as old as Ecruteak. In the distance, the artificial fluorescent light of the Pokémon Center pokes out among the outskirts.
Foster takes a deep breath of the stinging air. He’s nervous. It has taken months of convincing himself that he can be here. The first time it was still too new, too fresh in his mind to face it. He told himself he would make it by the end of summer, but of course he didn’t. Told himself that work at the mart needed him on account of all the trainers trying to make it through Mahogany before the early autumn started to make the trek north as unpleasant as they’ve heard it can be. But of course that was just an excuse, and autumn turned to winter and he didn’t come back to Ecruteak until November, the last time he attempted to do this, at which point he made it to this street and returned home with a promise to force himself back out against the cold the next chance he got.
Loads of people do this every month. Hot or cold, rain or shine. It’s part of the healing process. Then again, so is depression, and if family history wasn’t enough to pass it on to him, this sure was. He can’t remember the last time he went out with any of his friends from school. After graduating, most of them went out and tried to make a life for themselves in the big cities, or at least in the other small towns around Johto. Anywhere would be more welcoming than small-minded Mahogany. Why he hasn’t done the same is beyond him.
(But it’s not, not really, it’s right here down the street, Foster, you just have to deal with it and let yourself live for once in your goddamn waste of a life)
The scraping of steel on stone kickstarts him to take the first step forward. The rest come more easily as long as he lets his mind think of Palatine trailing behind him, rusted stockless frame edging along unnervingly close to the ground. Foster wonders how long it will take for him to be used to Pal’s habit of not floating high enough off the ground for xyr anchor to not constantly bump into everything. You’d think a ghostly piece of seaweed might have enough brains to choose a discarded piece of metal to inhabit that it can actually lift, but apparently not all dhelmise are as smart as you’d think.
As they make it farther than on previous attempts, Foster begins to doubt himself once again. The sickly feeling begins as a tiny ball in the pit of his stomach and is up in his throat before he knows it, setting his whole body on edge. It’s almost enough to turn around and rent a room at the center instead of continuing, but something keeps him moving forward. Maybe it’s the chill of the air stabbing at his bones or a subconscious part of his mind forcing him on. Either way, he comes to a stop at the end of the street when he sees his destination down the next block.
A few people are already there, living shadows among the trees and wrought iron fencing. Even though they are unknown to him, seeing other people gives him enough confidence to keep walking. As he gets closer the sound of somber music begins, faint at first but calmingly more present by the time he comes to the main entrance, a large open gate surrounded in lit candles that cast a wavering light across the metal letters arched a few feet above his head: “ECRUTEAK CEMETARY.”
Before he can convince himself that this is too much, too weird of an event to attend, and that he will come back during the day like any normal person, a duo draped in moth-eaten shawls appear from the shadows. Their wrinkled skin and sagging eyes hide their true age, but Foster guesses that they must both be years beyond any guess he would make. Despite their eerie appearance, both of their faces welcome him with kind smiles that ease his thoughts of bailing on tonight.
“Hello,” one of them says in a voice not immediately male nor female.
“Uh, hi,” Foster replies. He didn’t expect to talk to many people here, but now that he can see past the gates and make out at least a dozen people milling around between the graves, some silently mourning and others chatting away, he’s not as surprised that this event is advertised as a party.
The other one says, “Please take your time tonight,” and Foster realizes he isn’t going to be able to discern if these two are real people at all. They could be a pair of lovers, or twins, or lifelong friends, or one being entirely. After the things he’s heard of in the world, he’s not sure if any explanation would surprise him at all. The figure continues.
“There are no expectations here. You can find yourself among new friends or disappear into the shadows. No one will judge you as long as you respect the other guests.”
“If you need assistance with anything tonight, you can find us right here.”
At that, the two of them stop speaking. Foster looks back and forth at them, waiting for more, but nothing else needs to be said. With a sharp nod, he crosses the gates. His shoes find a dirt path made rock solid by the cold. The cemetery looks unfamiliar in the dark, but Foster remembers the correct path well enough. He begins to walk down it, but a sudden wave of nerves comes over him and he starts to return from where he came. He passes people crouched over headstones, wandering the trails, and talking to one another in the dark corners untouched by candlelight. A table by the gates has a collection of drinks and snacks available which he takes advantage of to give his shaking hands something to do.
Maybe this was the wrong idea, or the wrong time to try something like this. Grief takes a while to process, right? It is entirely plausible that he’s just not ready to let himself face these emotions. It hasn’t even been a year, he reminds himself. No one would judge him for turning around now.
The thought doesn’t have time to form much further, though, because at that moment a woman walks up to the table. Foster is about to walk away and give her some privacy, but she steps in his path and forces him to look her in the eyes. They are mostly hidden by the dark of night, but their expression is gentle.
“I saw you turn around and come over here,” she tells him. “I wanted to make sure you were okay.”
“I’m fine,” he says, looking down at the ginger ale he picked up from the table.
“We’re all fine.”
She says it in a matter-of-fact way that makes him uncomfortable at the thought that everyone here is probably going through something similar to himself. The smell of Pal’s rust mingles with the ginger ale and unsettles his stomach.
The woman pulls out her phone and after tapping around for a moment she turn it so he can see what she has pulled up. Even with the brightness turned all the way down, the screen is glaring in the dark.
“This is me and Claudia,” she says.
In front of him is a professional photo of the two of them, posed in the middle of a flowery field with what must be their partner pokémon beside them. The one he assumes is Claudia (because even in the dark, he can tell that the person standing next to him is not as pale as he one on the right side of the picture) has short red hair cut up to her ears and a smattering of freckles across her face. Her smile is all teeth framed by lipstick too dark for her face but that matches the dress she’s wearing and the stunky at her feet.
“We were together for four years before she passed, and that was two years ago now. I’m still not over it.”
Foster isn’t sure what to say. Sorry sounds too insensitive and he only just met her to say that he understands, so he remains silent. The woman minimizes the picture and scrolls through a few others. The angle she holds her phone allows Foster to see her screen. He tries not to watch what she’s doing but it’s hard to look away when he can’t see anything besides the glow of her device. There must be hundreds of pictures in the album she is going through: late-night snaps surrounded by pillows and blankets, solo shots, blurry candids, and selfies in front of the Olivine Lighthouse. By the looks of it, they spent a lot of time in Olivine, which would make sense – even being from the most conservative place on the Tohjo peninsula, Foster is aware of how LGBT-friendly places like Olivine and Goldenrod are.
“You two looked really happy,” he tells her. It hits him that that might not be the best thing to say, but she nods and locks her phone so it stops shining in their faces.
“She was the best,” the woman says. “I’m Flora, by the way.”
“Foster,” he tells her, reaching out and shaking her hand.
They make small talk as more people come through the gates and join the party. Flora never asks him why he is here tonight, which he is grateful for. Even when a few people she knows join their conversation, no one asks him anything about himself except where he got Palatine.
“I’ve never actually seen one in-person before,” a guy in his mid-twenties says as he gazes at xem with amazement and absentmindedly picks at his face. His own duskull floats around nearby, bumping between dead trees branches. “Do you have other ghost-types?”
Foster shakes his head. “No, Pal’s my only one. Xe was a gift from my aunt.”
“Wow, lucky you! Do you know where she managed to find a dhelmise?”
“She has connections,” he explains coolly, used to talking about how he ended up lugging around his partner, “I think someone sent it to her from Alola.”
“Man! I wish I had an aunt like that. You’ve probably got the only dhelmise in all of Johto.”
According to his aunt, Pal was the only one in Johto and Kanto. Some organization back in the eighties started to catalog every dhelmise in captivity for historical purposes since they carry around real anchors from old ships. The database is public to anyone with internet, and one day Foster did a search for others in the region. He wasn’t surprised to find that most dhelmise are owned in regions where there is a large dependency on traveling by boat or ship, making Johto a region with a scarce population. There used to be a few over near Olivine and Cianwood, but they were released back to the ocean when their owners passed or could no longer care for them.
Over the next hour, people come and go as they please. Some say hi to Flora or one of the other people congregating by the snack table and others disappear down the paths to be alone. As much as Foster wants to make another attempt at getting farther down the path, it does him good to make easy conversation with these people. They’re totally non-judgmental. Soon he finds himself asking non-invasive questions like where people are from, if they have gone on a trainer journey, what pokémon they own. He learns that Marcus – the boy who seems to be unable to not pick at his acne – comes from Kanto and is here to visit family. Another person is from right here in Ecruteak and has been coming to the party for years so her duskull can be around other friendly ghost-types.
It’s all going well until a familiar voice calls out from not too far away.
“Foster!”
The noise is jarring against the calm atmosphere of the night.
Oh no.
“Foster! Can anyone help me find my son?” the man asks. “His name is Foster Spearing.”
From over the heads of the people around him, Foster can see a man standing just inside the gates on the main path. He holds back from groaning in front of everyone at the sight of his dad: Everett Spearing, in all his balding glory, looking around frantically while candlelight reflects off of his head. Before he dad can make any more of a disturbance, Foster rushes past the people he’d been talking to, Pal trailing slowly behind.
“Dad!” he says in a hushed whisper. “What are you doing here?”
“What am I doing here? I’m making sure you’re okay,” he says, his voice a little too loud, too angry. Foster guides him to the side of the path so they can speak under the scattered cover of a bare oak tree.
“Why didn’t you just call me? I’m fine,” he says, his voice shaky with nerves. He can feel lingering eyes watching them.
“You wouldn’t answer your phone.”
Oops.
He’d forgotten that he turned it off on his walk through Ecruteak. If he had gotten so much as a text or Snapchat it would have enough of a sign to turn around and try to hitch a ride back home.
“I’m fine, Dad. Just… hanging out with people for now.”
The look in his dad’s eyes soften and Foster legitimately feels back for making him drive all the way out here. It’s bad enough that the car is on the brink of falling apart, but it doesn’t even have proper heat right now. The drive must have been hell with the temperatures around Mt. Mortar during this time of year. But here he is anyway, dutifully doing everything he can to make sure his son is okay.
“Foster… I’m glad you’re okay.” His eyes soften, but he refuses to let them so much as glisten, even hidden in the dark. “Please don’t do that again. I honestly thought… I don’t know.”
He shakes his head. They stand there facing each other but looking past one another at the dead trees, the headstones marking where even more dead people are buried, and those very much alive and chatting away like it’s totally normal to be at an event like this. Foster knows his dad won’t admit what he’s thinking, and why would he? They haven’t had a normal, honest conversation in nearly a year.
A welcome and familiar voice pierces their silence.
“Everything okay?” Flora asks.
No, it’s not, Foster wants to say.
“We’re fine,” he says instead. His eyes meet hers and he knows that they’re both thinking of what she said when they first met earlier that night. We’re all fine. She must come here a lot, he determines. She’s awfully comfortable with making people feel the weight of why they’re here.
“Just checking,” she tells them calmly. “I’ll be over by the drinks again if you need anything.”
After she’s gone his dad finally asks, “What the hell is this?”
His eyes look around like he’s only taking it all in for the first time. He must not have spoken to the duo at the gates.
“It’s a ghost party… for ghosts,” Foster clarifies, like that explains anything. When his dad finally looks him in the eye he’s forced to go into detail. “People bring their ghost-types here to socialize and be in an environment that they like. They spend so much time around the living-”
“-that they lose touch with death,” his dad finishes for him, fighting himself from rolling his eyes. He’s heard it enough from his sister, he doesn’t need to hear it from his son.
“Mhm.” They remain silent for a moment before Foster adds, “And some people come here because… they want to talk to people who have passed. It helps with all of the ghosts floating around to feel like they’re listening.”
“Jesus, that’s…” but his dad catches his raised eyebrows and says, “Morbid.”
Some people still shoot glances at them like they’re ruining the vibe of the party. At this point Foster doesn’t care. If a text would have been enough of a sign not to come tonight, this is certainly more than enough.
“We should just go home.”
“Are you sure?”
The way that he says it asks an underlying question that neither of them want to bring up. Foster just nods and starts to head towards the gates. It takes a second but his dad starts to silently follow.
Inside the ’94 Vision the temperature feels even colder than standing outside, so Foster has chosen the latter in order to let Pal be unconfined from xyr ball. Meanwhile, Everett Spearing tries unsuccessfully to start the car. Among the sputtering of the engine Foster can hear him swearing like he’s never sweared before. The eyeball hovering above Pal’s anchor watches intently at the car’s mechanic noises, probably trying to decipher the foreign language.
When at last his dad gives up and steps out of the car, the cold has bitten into Foster’s hands despite being shoved deep inside his pockets. It would probably be a good idea to find a diner or get back to the Pokémon Center soon. The parking lot is only down the street from the cemetery so it wouldn’t be too difficult of a walk back into the center of the city.
“I’m going to call your mom and see if she can ask around and borrow a car,” his dad tells him after a frustrated sigh. “Do you want to go back to the party?”
“I’m fine.”
Everett sighs again. Underneath it all, he feels bad for intruding on his son’s life. But… going into Foster’s room and not seeing him or Pal brooding in the dark struck him deep inside. It didn’t help that his calls kept going straight to voicemail, either. In the moment it didn’t feel like an overreaction to risk driving all the way out here - in the moment it felt like Tacoma all over again. All of the dread that filled him the moment he saw Con Wicke walk through the door of his parents’ house rushed back into his memory and nothing seemed to rationalize him. He may be an older parent, but he’s kept up with technology enough to know how to pry into his son’s life. If he hadn’t found the webpage on Foster’s computer for the cemetery event he’s not sure what he would have done.
“Are you sure? It’s going to be a while.” When he gets no response, his mind falls on a thought. “How did you get here?”
Foster’s hand tenses around the baggie of weed in his pocket that he bought from his dealer before asking for a ride past Mt. Mortar. This is definitely not the moment he would like to admit that to his father.
“I asked someone for a ride,” he mumbles. “I’m actually going to go back to the cemetery. I think they had hot chocolate. You want some?”
It’s not much, but it works.
“I’m alright. Might find some place to wait until your mom can get out here.”
With a nod, Foster starts heading back to the party as his dad pokes around on his phone to call his wife.
It hasn’t been more than half an hour after Foster walks back through the gates and shakily dispenses hot chocolate into a styrofoam cup for himself when he’s approached from behind.
“Hey, kid,” he hears his dad say. The people he had been talking to must have seen Everett the first time he showed up because they immediately disperse.
Before Foster can have any kind of reaction his dad says, “I finally got through to your mom. Apparently something is happening on the Mortar. They’ve got the whole route closed off.”
“What- what does that mean?”
His dad shrugs and says, “I guess we’re staying in the city for the night.”
It takes a beat for the words to sink in, but when they do it’s like Foster’s world comes into focus. He sees his dad staring back at him with the defeated look on his face that hasn’t seemed to disappear since last year, except now... now it makes sense. The weariness in his eyes, the grief holding his shoulders down. He had honestly thought his dad gave up, but in reality it's all of the same things Foster is feeling: the guilt that he should have done something different and the anguish of losing someone who was so ingrained in your life and the meaningless of life when you've seen someone so young disappear from existence.
Well, shit.
Foster can’t do anything but sigh, and when he does his breath catches on its way out. The tiny cracks that have been forming on the walls he built up start to spread, and when his dad’s eyes narrow and he says, “Foster? Are you alright?” everything shatters.
“No,” he sobs.
Some time later, when he can’t feel his fingers or toes anymore, Foster hears footsteps come down the path. When they stop in front of him and his dad, he looks up and sees Flora. She cautiously extends two cups of hot chocolate for them to take. The warmth coming off of the cup stings his hands and the sweet scent of the drink is enough to bring him back to reality. Flora knowingly doesn’t say anything and just walks away back down the path. Neither of them drink form their cups but the disturbance gets them moving again.
They move silently down the path with Everett’s arm around his son. They both know the way, even though they haven’t been here since the funeral. You don’t forget, no matter how long the time between visits becomes. Knowing that they are returning for the first time brings small tears to their eyes. Not that they’ve stopped crying since Foster broke down - they stood there with their arms around each other, sobbing as men should, until Everett brought them a little ways down the path to sit against a tree and let it out. It was probably the first time either of them have fully let in what happened, Foster realizes.
It doesn’t take long to reach the headstone, the last one in a row towards the back. None of the ghost-types have come this far out, so it’s completely silent. The weight of everything is able to loom over them as they look down at its surface. It stares back at them, unmoving; a solid marker of what they’ve lost.
JONAS STEIN HALLMAN
2001 - 2018
2001 - 2018
“Hi, Jonas,” Foster manages to say. The rest of what he’d like to say becomes lost to him, though. Instead he stands and stares down at the engraved letters until they don’t look like words any more.
Everett’s voice is shaky when he starts to speak.
“We both miss you… a lot,” he says. “Your family does, too. I talk to your dad every now and then. He’s still working at the National Park, and your mom-”
“Aquaria is living at the park now,” Foster jumps in. He turns to his dad and says, “His family thought it would be better if she could roam around freely. Vaporeon don’t like captivity. At least this way his dad could check on her regularly.”
Everett smiles. Together, they take turns telling Jonas what’s been going on since his passing. It’s awkward, for sure, but the guilt welling inside Foster is eased the longer he talks. It will never be okay that he lost his friend at such a young age, but he knows that it will get easier as time passes. No one will be able to replace Jonas, either, but that doesn’t mean Foster should keep himself barricaded in Mahogany for the rest of his life.
There’s more to life than that. Better to start living now while he still has the chance.
This was honestly I lot of fun to write. Ghost Town and all of its parts changed my perspective on fic writing and I feel honored having the opportunity to take a stab at this canon. (I hope I got Everett's general age right. I tried to look through Ghost Town for a specific age at that time but was unsuccessful and had to make an educated guess. From the little bit of him in GT I could see him being an older father, but that's just me.) Aaaaand I'll stop rambling.
I like that he's keeping the tradition of unusual names that he inherited from his mother alive, too. Unless Foster is a more common name than I think it is, but like, I've never come across it before, so. :V