#like the FDR Memorial would have made more sense as a -getting lost- location

[bloomingonionbitch]

(manifesting getting this writing/editing gig that's split between remote and D.C.)

[collecting-stories]

Ghost - Modern!Ivar

A/N: This is for @tephi101‘s 800 follower writing challenge. I’m so sorry this was late and hopefully it turned out okay. I’ve been wrestling with this idea since I signed up for your challenge and I was gonna scrap it but I just couldn’t let go lol. So here it is!

Ghost - Modern!Ivar x reader

It was an odd thing to think but ghosts had played an unusual part in your relationship with Ivar. In your small apartment three stories up from the ground you laid in bed thinking about the young man that had taken up too much of your time for the last four years. If you could have done it over again, rewound time to the exact moment you meant and decided not to be outgoing you never would. Regardless of everything that had happened in the past four years you would never change any of the memories you had or trade them or something else.  

You could still remember the day you met Ivar. Never much for company, he’d been dragged by his brothers to a Halloween party at a friend’s house. They’d convinced him to dress as some sort of famous, historical, and physically disabled dead guy, telling him it’d be funny. He was the ghost of FDR if you remembered correctly and he looked absolutely livid to even be there in the house. That and the living room where everyone was spending their time was sunken-in, making it near impossible for him to actually join in the festivities. Which was better luck for you because you had no interest in parties either and you desperately just wanted to go home so when he rolled up to the snack table you couldn’t help thinking that you finally had a companion for the evening.  

“What are you meant to be?” You had asked, voice slightly raised because even in the kitchen you could hear the noise of the living room.  

“A president?” He shrugged. “A ghost of a president.”

“Oh Roosevelt. Clever.”  

“My brother chose it...I’d’ve preferred to stay home.” He replied. Ivar was certain he’d severed any chance at further conversation. He wanted to sulk in piece at the food table not entertain someone who had the unartistic sense to dress as a black cat at Halloween. Even if he wasn’t entirely sure who this Roosevelt fellow was.  

“Do you want any of the punch?” You asked as you dipped your red cup into the punch bowl and scooped out a good helping of whatever the concoction was.  

“Not particularly.” Ivar watched as you shrugged and took a rather large gulp of the blue liquid. You coughed immediately afterward, trying to cover it with an awkward laugh that only made it more noticeable.  

“It’s really strong.” You confirmed, looking down into the cup before sniffing it suspiciously, as if you would be able to tell all the different types of alcohol from one whiff of the over-sugared drink.  

“I can tell.” There was just a hint of a smirk on his face and you smiled at him, pleased with yourself that you’d managed to make him grin, even just a little bit.  

You decided that now was as good a time as any to introduce yourself to him and hoped as you told him your name he wouldn’t just brush you off as being annoying. If you were lucky he’d give you a name back and if things truly worked in your favor maybe you would see more of Roosevelt. He did tell you his name, Ivar, and he threw in a snarky comment about your unoriginal cat costume while he introduced himself.

“I didn’t really want to be here, this was all my friends could find in my apartment.” You replied. Honestly you weren’t too interested in the party scene, at least not when you were in the middle of your third year of college and you wanted everything to go according to plan.  

“You had cat ears on hand?” He asked skeptically.

“Yes?”

You met Ivar again purposely. After the party you had given him your number, hoping he would use it but positive he would only throw it away. So that first text from him was surprising but welcome. He wasn’t what you expected, both then and every day after that.  

The best dates were not even dates but simple movie nights. The two of you sequestered in your apartment, lounging across the couch with snacks littering the coffee table as you watched movie after movie. Eventually one or both of you would fall asleep only to wake hours later to the generic lock screen of your apple tv playing picture-videos of different global locations. You alternated each week who would choose the movie but that never stopped Ivar from complaining every time you chose something he didn’t like.  

“It’s iconic,” you argued, sitting on the couch and tossing your legs over Ivar’s lap. It was movie night at the flat and due to a lost bet between you and Ivar the week prior it was up to you to choose the movie.  

“It’s stupid.” He complained, reaching over to take the freshly made bowl of popcorn from you just as Whoopi Goldberg appeared on screen. “He’s dead, she should move on.”

“She can’t. She was in love and his ghost self is still haunting the apartment.” You replied, a smile on your face.

Ivar huffed in annoyance, crossing his arms over his chest as he stared at the television screen, deciding not to pay attention.  

You couldn’t help laughing at his expression and leaned over, placing a kiss on his cheek. “Just think, next Friday you get to pick the movie.”  

He had his own collection of questionable movie choices but you were never one to complain, a trait that helped to balance out the relationship you found yourself in. He was reluctant to call you his girlfriend and at first you thought it had something to do with you. Maybe he didn’t like you the way you thought he liked you or maybe he just didn’t want to label something so soon because there could be others. Your friends were far more willing to believe that Ivar was just another fuckboy, toying with your emotions while he occupied his time away from you with other girls who were equally willing to believe his stories. But it wasn’t that. His unwillingness to call you his girlfriend had everything to do with his own insecurities and the reality of something more serious than you realized.  

-

“I thought this was movie night?” Ivar grumbled.  

“I’m sorry, I didn’t know anyone was coming over.” You replied. The movie paused and Ivar disappeared into your bedroom as you pressed the buzzer. “Hello?”

“Hey, you answered!” Hvitserk’s happy voice rung through speaker. “Buzz me up?”

“I’m kinda busy H.” You insisted, chancing a look back to the living room.

“Please?”

-

The first time Ivar asked you to be his girlfriend it was an entire two months after you met him. He was with you after a play that you had somehow managed to drag him to. A Christmas Carol was on at the local playhouse and your sister’s son was playing Tiny Tim. You took the opportunity to invite Ivar on a date to a place that wasn’t just your house and were surprised when he accepted. The play was alright, a great effort for a cast of volunteers that were putting the show on purely because they loved it. You made plenty of jokes about Ivar being more like Scrooge than Tiny Tim and he grumbled through them pretending to be annoyed.  

He wasn’t.

After the play while you helped him into the car he told you that he needed to talk to you about something. Acting like it was serious was a guaranteed way to make you instantly nervous but then he smiled and you knew it was nothing too bad.

“So I told my mom that I was bringing my girlfriend to Christmas Eve,” he said, sending you a hopeful look. He fiddled with the hand controls on his car as he started to back out of the theatre parking lot, trying to sound nonchalant.  

“Yeah?” You asked, turning to him with the beginnings of a smile. “Your girlfriend?”

“That okay?”  

“That’s perfect.” You replied.

When you got home that night you and Ivar watched the Kelsey Grammar version of A Christmas Carol and he listened to you tell him how sad it was when Scrooge danced with the ghost of Jennifer Love Hewitt. Ghosts once more dictated the important moments of your life with him.  

-

“It’ll be fun,” Hvitserk tried to reason, sitting down on the couch with you where you had paused the movie. You picked at the fringe on your blanket, trying to appear indifferent but knowing that you probably looked on the verge of a breakdown.

“I don’t know...I’m not really in the mood to go anywhere.��

-

It was Halloween again and you were the ghost this time. When you thought back on it you couldn’t remember anything about your costume or Ivar’s, only that you were a ghost. The party was in a different house this time, a house that belonged to Hvitserk’s current girlfriend. You were in the kitchen like last time, talking to the young woman that had captured Ivar’s brother’s attention for the time being while Ivar was in the bathroom.  

And then someone called your name. It was a screamed that sounded so loud you swore the music had been cut but you knew when you thought back on it that the music was still blaring in the background. A friend of a friend appeared in the hallway, gripping the corner of the wall as they called your name once more.

“It’s Ivar!”  

He was laying on his side in the hallway, just out of the bathroom door, his wheelchair on it’s side. He was seizing and you yelled for someone to call an ambulance though there was already someone on the phone as you said it. Hvitserk came running from somewhere in the house shouting his brother’s name and dropping to his knees when he arrived by his brother’s side.  

The ambulance seemed to come slow but you knew it was fast. You would’ve insisted on riding with him but Hvitserk looked close to a breakdown so instead you managed to pull yourself together long enough to drive Hvitserk to the hospital in Ivar’s car. You weren’t great at hand controls and nearly stalled the car three times on the way there but you made it in one piece and followed Hvitserk inside as he rushed the front desk demanding to know where his brother was.  

Both of you stayed that night, sitting in the waiting room until you were allowed to go sit in Ivar’s room. Eventually Hvitserk went home but you never did. Not until Ivar was permitted to. You both went home together, back to your apartment. He talked candidly about what happened at the house party and what was wrong and why he had been so reluctant to call you his girlfriend. You were in love and you told him that.  

-

That Christmas you and Ivar were separated. Your mother had bought the whole family cruise tickets and Ivar declined, the thought of being trapped on a ship in the middle of the ocean not his idea of a good time. The internet held up though and you spent a majority of your time sending him snapchats of yourself, sometimes more compromising, always giddy when the little ghost on your phone let you know that you had a notification.  

Ivar enjoyed the exchange as well though he would have preferred having you there in person, a fact he was not shy about letting you know. Once Christmas was done and you had returned home the need for the third-party ghost was no longer necessary.  

“I’m going to go on vacation more often if you’re this excited to see me!” You teased, kissing him as he leaned over you in bed that night.

“I’m this excited to see you when you get home from the grocery store.” He replied, grinning. Cheesy but always flattering you had no comeback other than pulling him in for another kiss.  

-

“Where are you going?” Ivar asked, watching you get changed out of your comfy pajamas.

“Hvitserk asked me to go out with him, just to a bar or something.” You commented, trying to ignore the twist in your stomach as you met his eyes in the mirror. He looked annoyed and you looked away.

“I thought we were watching movies.”  

“I can’t sit here and watch movies forever Ivar.”

-

You got two more Halloweens and two more Christmases and an eternity of days between them all. It was January when Ivar collapsed again, not for the first or second time but for the last. You were alone this time and you called 911, crying through the phone to ‘please come, please’. Hvitserk met you at the hospital. Ivar’s mother, his other brothers, his dad, and a few friends all followed. They waited and waited and left and came back and repeated the cycle for months. And then spring came and Ivar went.  

Hvitserk was sitting in the room, talking to you and Ivar about a girl he met at the bar the weekend before when it happened. Ivar was holding your hand, his thumb running back and forth on your skin as he listened to his brother. Every so often you looked up at your boyfriend and smiled, sweet and loving and hopeful. Then his hand gripped yours, too tight, before going limp and he seized one last time. The monitors went off and a whole team of medical professionals came running in and you felt yourself being ushered out and you heard yourself calling his name. And Hvitserk reached for you and he stood there in the hallway holding you close to his chest as you sobbed for his brother.  

-

“But it’s movie night.” Ivar looked close to tears and you stopped drying your hair long enough to turn away from the mirror and face him.  

“Ivar,” You shook your head. God you were going crazy. You’d locked yourself in your apartment ever since the funeral. You just kept watching the same movies on repeat, not eating, hardly sleeping. You smelled and you looked terrible and you were depressed and every inch of your body ached with hurt and you were angry. But you couldn’t be forever. “Ivar, you aren’t here.”

“I am.”

“No...no you aren’t.” You insisted. “I love you but you aren’t here anymore. I have to go, I can’t stay here with you.”  

“Just one more night.”  

A knock on the bedroom door and Hvitserk was calling your name, making sure you were okay and you were still going out with him. Even just a walk to the bodega on the corner he said.

“I’ve given you too many nights already.”

- 

I think this is both the fastest and slowest I have ever written a fic before.