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Nathan was taking a normal walk around the edge of the property when he suddenly stopped. He smelled something, something sweet. He followed the scent and stopped at the property line. It lead further into the woods, where he could see a smoke stack rising from the trees. Either this was a very sweet smelling forest fire, or someone was cooking something just out of Nathan’s reach. In the first case he should definitely tell Katherine, but something held him back from that.
“Is anyone there?” he called out towards the smoke. No response. He tried again “hello?” He heard rustling in the bushes as someone walked towards him. “Hello! My name’s Nathan-” he was cut off with the swing of a knife through his chest. He laughed nervously and looked up to see an old blood stained pillowcase with two holes in it to see from “I see your eye holes are still working properly, good for you!” PK, upon realizing that this was just a ghost and not someone he actually had to deal with, turned to leave. “Wait!” Nathan shot out his hand to grab him. Suddenly they were both in a place outside of reality, floating surrounded by colours that were hard to imagine. This feeling ran its way through Nathan’s body, he laughed involuntarily. He pulled back his hand and was once again in reality. PK was just staring at him, he’d been there too. He’d felt it too. Nathan was sure of it. He opened his mouth to speak again but PK turned and ran away from the property line and back towards the smoke. Nathan, unable to follow him, just watched. He waited there for several hours, but PK did not come back. Nathan sighed, maybe he had done something wrong. But he hadn’t really done anything, at least not intentionally. Nathan looked down sadly and began walking back to the hotel.
The next night he returned to that place, on the edge of the property line.
“PK! Buddy? I think we should talk about what happened!” he paced back and forth nervously “or we don’t have to, if you don’t want to. But I still wanna talk! We can talk about anything! How have you been?” he heard that rustling again and smiled when he saw PK. He stood on the opposite side of the property line. A precaution to stop Nathan from touching him, though of course Nathan would never do that without asking, now that he knew what happened. PK’s apron and pillow case had fresh red stains on them. Nathan smiled nervously “still killing I see…” but no, those stains weren’t blood… he looked down at PK’s knife, with a similar thick red substance on it. It smelled like… strawberries! “Are you making strawberry jam!?” Nathan was filled with joy and pride, that maybe PK really had been listening to him. PK looked down at his knife, then at the ground. “Oh I knew I’d get through to you! That must be the sweet smell then right, strawberries? Do you have a garden? Is it all strawberries or is there other fruit? Oh, what about mint!” PK turned and began to walk away “wait! I just wanna talk!” but PK was gone back into the brush. Nathan kicked the dirt beneath him with a huff, this time he really wasn’t sure what he’d done wrong. He supposed PK just wasn’t the talking kind of person, maybe- he saw PK returning from the bushes with two objects in his hands.
He arrived, still standing behind the line, but he set the first object down on the ground in front of him. A jar of strawberry jam. He pushed it over to Nathan before retreating back. Nathan stared down at it, in awe. Then his attention was directed back to PK as he took something out of his pocket and fiddled with the other object in his hand. It was a notebook.
PK wrote in it, then held it up so that Nathan could read “I also grow companion plants like parsley and lettuce, but I only make jam with the strawberries.”
Nathan smiled brightly “well of course, I’ve never heard of parsley jam.” he said in a joking tone. He couldn’t see PK’s expression underneath the pillowcase, but he hoped he smiled too. Nathan sat down cross legged on the ground, maybe PK would feel more comfortable that way? “So… do you want to talk?” he paused “can you talk?”
PK looked around nervously before writing his answer “not really.”
“Is that answering the first question or the second?” Nathan puzzled “I'll assume the second, cause if you didn't really want to be here you could just leave. Not like I can follow you…” PK turned to look behind him “oh no, please don't leave!”
He turned back to Nathan, holding up the book “I won't.”
Nathan sighed “ok, good. So uh- I'm Nathan, you already know that… I feel like I did most of the talking when we first met, how about you tell me about yourself?”
PK thought for a moment “what do you want to know?”
Nathan smiled. What did he want to know? There were the big questions, obviously, like ‘why do you murder people' or ‘did you know you're a soul conduit’ but those felt a little heavy for right now. Instead he just asked “have you always grown strawberries or did you start doing that because of me?”
“A long time. The fact you brought it up specifically was just a really good guess.”
“Interesting…” he thought, “oh I know! What's your favorite color?”
PK just stared at him for a solid few seconds before writing down his answer “red. You?”
“Well I guess that makes sense…” Nathan smiled “mine’s blue. You might be able to tell by the fact I'm wearing a blue sweater for all of eternity. Though I guess that's just a coincidence since I happened to die in it… but a lot of my clothes were blue so it must have been likely. Oh!” Nathan gasped “speaking of clothes, do you only wear this or do you have other outfits? Like is this just your ‘murder and jam making’ fit?”
“I have other clothes.”
“I bet they look great on you.” Nathan smiled. Then he caught himself “uh- um… how about work, do you do anything for work? Gotta pay the bills somehow.”
“I work construction.”
“Huh…” that's interesting… Maybe he could get Katherine to hire him for some of the repairs the hotel constantly required. “I run a hotel. Well- used to run a hotel. It's still mine, I'm just kinda dead so my sister took over. But I'm the co-owner.” He smiled like that was supposed to be impressive. “Do you live over there?” He pointed to the smokestack behind them “I assume that's a cabin. Unless you live in the woods, which is totally fine. My ward Abaddon (remember him?) He lived in the woods for years.”
“Yes. It's a cabin.”
“Did you build it yourself?” PK nodded, “well that's impressive!” Nathan tried to think of other small talk “do you go into town often, or I guess, at all? Well- suppose you'd have to in order to have a job.”
“Once or twice a week.”
“So you just… spend the rest of your time up here? Alone?”
PK shrugged “I have my garden. And once a year I go on a killing spree.”
Nathan took in a breath through his teeth “Right… about that…” he was looking for the right words “don't you think there's a better way to harness that energy?” PK just stared at him without writing anything on the notebook “I get it, if you don't want to talk about it. But, I don't know, it feels kinda important? Like, you almost killed my sister. So… are you going to return next year and kill her or?”
PK looked down “I don't think so.”
“Not the most reassuring, but I'll take it!” Nathan smiled “any particular reason?”
“I don't think I have to anymore.”
“Why is that?” Nathan leaned forward like his therapist used to, trying to make it clear he was ready to listen.
“That girl, your niece, it's up to her now. If she wants to.”
“Hm…” Nathan thought “so that's why you gave her your handrake? Like a passing of the torch?” PK shrugged, “I mean it must have been something symbolic, because if you have a garden then I assume you also have more handrakes.” Nathan paused. PK wasn't looking at him, he was looking at the ground. “Do you… wanna talk about it?”
He did. He really did. He'd wanted to tell someone, anyone, for so long. But who could he tell? Who could hear that he was an immortal serial killer without running the other way? Nathan didn't seem to mind. It was the first thing Nathan knew about him, and yet he still followed him throughout the hotel talking to him. Sure, he was trying to keep him from murdering those teens, but there was a sincerity there. He flipped his pen around in his fingers anxiously before he started to write. And, before he knew it, he was telling this ghost everything. About his mother, about running away, about living on his own for all these years.
“That sounds… really tough. I'm sorry.” Nathan held out his hand, and PK pulled back. “Right- sorry.”
PK smiled under his hood “stop apologizing.”
Nathan blushed. “Um… well-” he saw that the sun had started to rise “I better head back to the hotel before Katherine and the kids wake up. But hey, I'll come talk to you tonight, alright?” PK nodded.
And he did return that night, and the night after that. He returned every night for several nights in a row. He made small talk with PK. Sometimes he managed to get him to open up, discuss more serious topics, but in general he kept it light. He didn't want to scare him off. He learned that PK sold his jam and other crops at a seasonal market in town. He learned that he was born in the 1920s, and stopped aging around his mid 40s. He didn't know why or how he was immortal.
“Maybe it's because you're a soul conduit?” Nathan suggested. PK looked at him in confusion “right- uh… wow should have mentioned that earlier. So, I don't really know what it means, but my nephew is one. And it kind of is like… you can touch ghosts? Or maybe only specific ghosts, in specific ways. And ghosts can go inside you, and they're in like a joyless netherworld. But that only happens with an exorcist, or a talisman, or some other black magic. Man… my niece would be way better at explaining this. One sec, I'll go get-” PK tried to grab his arm, instead they both returned to that place. It felt… weird. Good, but weird. But good, like really good. And for a second PK wanted to just stay there and enjoy it. Then reality hit him and he pulled his hand away “right.” Said Nathan, blushing “also, that happens. Annabelle says it happens for her and Ben because they're soulmates, but I'm pretty sure that was just something she said to get with Ben…” he stopped talking as he noticed PK just… staring at him. He smiled “so uh- yeah. Maybe that's why you're immortal.”
PK wrote in his notebook “what else does it mean?”
“I uh…” Nathan felt his face get hot “I don't know. I could ask Esther, that's my niece.”
“I don't want her to know where I am.”
“Why not? She's a great kid, really good at black magic too. Scarily good… maybe we should talk to her about that.”
“She set me on fire.”
“Well, in all fairness, you were going to murder her mom.”
“Then your ward attacked me and her brother pushed me out a window as revenge for killing a kid I didn't actually kill.”
“I knew you didn't kill Randy!” Nathan exclaimed proudly “no way in hell that kid was getting any.” Nathan heard a laugh from under PK’s mask “are you… laughing?” PK looked away from him, he smiled “you are!”
“I just think that kid is funny. He tells me every year how he's going to get revenge on me for murdering him, when I was there and saw him just fall and break his neck.”
“Yeah…” Nathan tried to draw lines in the dirt with his finger “lots of ghosts make up stuff about how they died. I think it's like, a way of coping, you know? Makes us feel more important than we actually are if we died in some cool way.”
PK looked at him “how did you die?”
“Oh! Uh- wow…” Nathan laughed nervously, “that's a big question.”
“Sorry.”
“Now you're the one apologizing!”
They both smiled at each other.
Nathan set off on his nightly walk to talk with PK. It had been several weeks now, and it had been the best weeks of his life. Or well, his death. Still, it had been fun! Nathan would tell PK about his day at the hotel. PK wasn't much for talking, but Nathan loved to listen when he was willing. And slowly he opened up. He'd tell him about the projects he was working on, the new garden bed he was making and the seeds he was planting. He'd even tell him about his trips into town. He observed a lot, watched the townspeople go about their days. He gossiped with Nathan about the various relationships and breakups he'd witnessed. What new businesses had popped up. He told Nathan that he had a pet cat and several pigeons. He liked to watercolor. His ‘real’ name was Arthur, though he did prefer PK.
“Can I see your face?” PK stopped mid-sentence, Nathan wasn't really sure why he'd chosen that moment to ask. He'd been thinking about it for a while. “Unless of course you don't want t- woah…” Nathan cut himself off as PK took off his hood. Nathan felt his face go red. Why could ghosts blush? “Are you single?” He covered his mouth with his hands. Had he actually said that aloud? He’d only thought it as a joke… now PK was blushing too. “I mean, obviously you are. Well- not obviously! Because, you could totally… but I meant like obviously because of your whole hatred of sex. Not that all relationships include sex-” PK looked down at his notebook and started writing something “you know what? It's none of my business! I don't know why I even asked…”
“I kind of thought we were a thing?”
Nathan stared at the words PK had written. “I uh… well…” he couldn't think of an answer. He hadn't even considered it a possibility. Sure he felt things, but he never thought PK would reciprocate them.
PK’s face fell “nevermind.” He got up to leave.
“Wait!” Nathan cried out. PK stopped and turned towards him. “Can you come back here?” PK went back to where he’d been sitting. “A little closer?” he took several steps forward, and as soon as he crossed the property line Nathan ran up and kissed him. He pulled back, PK stared at him “sorry- I thought that would be romantic but I probably should have asked first-” PK kissed him back.