Impulse's abrupt awakening was surprising and hurtful, as his ghostly body phased through the partner he was leaning on and fell directly onto the hospital floor. He and Bdubs agreed to watch over Tango while Jimmy, and therefore him too, were unconscious, and in the little time Tango had been awake after the accident, he wanted to see his soulbound in the hospital, only that was a few hours ago and it was getting dark out, so Impulse and Bdubs ended up falling asleep on a bench in the hallway across from Jimmy's room.
Impulse's biggest issue right now wasn't that he'd hurt anything, or even that he was back here in the first place, but it was whoever was laughing very loudly at him face planting the white tiles.
"BFF- AHAHAHAHA!" They bellowed, as if it was the funniest thing they'd ever seen in a long time. Impulse had no doubt that this probably was, considering they had to have been another ghost trapped here, but he believed in explanations, not excuses.
"Pause, that was not funny!" Another voice chimed in, which surprised Impulse. "...ok it was kind of funny, but not that funny. He just died, show some respect!"
"Ok mom, whatever you say," Pause retaliated, but still giggling under his breath as the brunette could easily hear. He finally picked his head up to look at the two ghosts.
The one closer to him, who he assumed was Pause from his continued giggling, had a headdress of black, white, and red feathers, falling all the way down his back. Leather clothing accompanied other red, cyan, and white decorations, and red paint went around his eyes like a mask. More like eye, since the left half of his face and most of his left arm looked like charcoal, as if he had been burned, and his left eye was missing from its socket.
The second ghost had similar scars, his right arm, leg, and a portion of the right side of his body smoldered to a crisp, though he still had both of his green eyes. He had on a black shirt mostly covered in the front by an apron that was pure white aside from the small patches of bloodstains on it, accompanied by blue jeans and black sneakers. The oddest thing about his appearance wasn't any of that, but rather that, where all the other ghosts Impulse had seen were shaded over in green, the raven haired one was tinted blue instead.
"Not dead, by the way," Impulse corrected, standing up and rubbing the pain out of his face. "Just like to stop by the old post-mortem realm for funsies,"
He said the last line with a twang of sarcasm.
"...yeah, right, that's believable." Pause said, rolling his eyes. "Beef, can you believe this guy?"
"Oh my gosh..." Impulse groaned. "Look, I don't wanna be here for that long, so do either of you happen to know where I can find Shubble?"
"The gnome?" Beef asked. "She usually spends her time around the forest that way,"
He pointed east from the way the hospital faced. Impulse nodded.
"Thank you," he said, walking to the wall expecting to phase through it like a ghost should. Instead, he ran smack dab into it as if it were still solid, slamming his face for the second time that night. He was starting to hope his soulbound connection didn't transcend realms, or else Bdubs would be asking him way too many questions when they woke up.
"Dude!" Pause said, sounding less concerned and more annoyed. "Do you know how lucky you are to have a perfectly good body when you're dead? Don't ruin it by breaking your nose!"
"Not. Dead." Impulse corrected again, not speaking much until the pain went away and he could take his hand off of his face. "Why didn't I go through the wall? You're supposed to be able to do that, right?"
"Have you ever phased through a wall before?" Beef asked. "Because if you haven't, that would explain it."
"I have to learn how to do that?" Impulse asked. Beef nodded.
"You know what," the raven continued, "I'll go see if I can get Shubble here to meet you. Pause, just make sure this guy doesn't hurt himself,"
"No promises," Pause said, giving Beef a thumbs up as Beef just rolled his eyes, smirked, and promptly left through the wall Impulse couldn't.
Pause watched as he left, waited a second, then turned back to Impulse. "So, first time being dead?"
"I'm not- why does everyone think I'm dead?" Impulse asked.
"You're literally in the realm that you go to when you die, I don't know what else to tell you dude," Pause said. Impulse groaned.
"You're right, but still," the brunette said, his mood still slightly sour. Pause easily picked up on this and, while still not too keen on him, decided to do something about it.
"Do you wanna learn?" He asked.
Impulse looked at him, confused. "You mean learn how to go through walls?"
"I was gonna say learn how to be a ghost in general, but phasing through stuff should be a good place to start." Pause said, nodding.
Impulse thought about it for a moment, then finally agreed. "I don't see why not." He said.
"Good! First thing's first," Pause said, walking up to the wall and knocking on it, "you're used to believing that walls are solid. And they are... if you're still alive. But as a ghost, you gotta get used to believing that they're just another version of air. You can walk through them, breathe through them, move around in them, it doesn't matter, because it's just more air to you now. So concentrate on that."
"Oook?" Impulse said, not entirely sure but willing to give it a shot. Not solid, he thought to himself, it's just like air.
Despite these affirmations, his arm still pressed against the wall as he went forward. He groaned.
"Hm, this might be harder than I thought..." Pause said. "Let's try something else. Close your eyes for a minute."
Impulse did as he was told, but he quickly noticed something odd. While yes, his eyes were closed and he could see darkness all around, he could also see the faint outline of Pause, burn scars included, along with something heart shaped in the middle of his body, bright green and glowing. Smaller other dots were scattered around, one blue dot noticeable in the eastward direction. He figured he could mention it another time, it was probably just another normal ghost thing anyway.
"Now back up a bit, I'll tell you when to stop," Pause said. Impulse complied, backing up way farther than he anticipated. When he was finally told to open his eyes, he was already in a different room entirely.
"Surprise! I gotcha to go through the wall behind you," Pause said, poking his body halfway through the wall himself. Impulse was taken aback, pun not intended.
"I didn't even feel anything," he commented.
"Yep, that's how it usually goes. It helps to close your eyes, but you'll get used to just doing it on habit eventually." The ghost said. "I'd work on it before you tried doing the floor though, don't need you falling through the dirt y'know,"
"...right." Impulse said, finally taking a moment to look around the room. He quickly realized it was Jimmy's current room, the blonde laid down on the bed with Tango kneeled next to him, resting his head in his arms as he slept near his bound.
"...you know these guys?" Pause asked, noticing Impulse's light smile.
"Yeah, one of my best friends and his soulbound," Impulse explained, sitting down against the wall before suddenly phasing through it, hitting his head for the third time that night. He could already hear Pause start to laugh again from the other side of the wall.
"Do you not laugh at anything else?" Impulse asked. Pause wiped a fake tear from his good eye, coming back to the hallway.
"Not a lot of ghosts come around and Beef isn't that clumsy, so I'm taking what I can get here," he explained.
"But from what I've heard there are plenty of ghosts out there. Why don't you talk to them?" Impulse asked. Pause sighed.
"Yeah. Out there. Where I can't go," he said.
"You can't leave the hospital?" Impulse asked, somewhat surprised that a ghost could be double trapped in a sense. "Why not?"
Now Pause just looked annoyed. "Here's a tip for the afterlife, especially in this place: don't ever ask a ghost why they're stuck somewhere. Because it always has to do with how their body was handled after they died and bringing that up is... how do I put this lightly? A dick move."
"Oh... I'm sorry, I didn't know," the brunette apologized. Pause sighed.
"It's fine," he said, "just be glad you asked me first and not some other ghost who has it off worse."
Impulse shuddered at the thought that there was a "worse" in a situation like this. Just as he was about to say something else, Beef came back through the east wall, along with Shubble and a new ghost. This one had blue and yellow lined clothing, bits of armor adorning his right arm. Nothing covered the hole that went straight through his chest, allowing Impulse to see clearly behind him.
"Hi!" Shubble said, smiling. "Sorry, I didn't think you'd be over here of all places. I'm glad you were looking for me though!"
The new ghost walked forward a bit more. "So you're that Impulse person Shrub told me about, hi! I'm Sausage!"
"Oh, hello-" Impulse went to greet, but then suddenly stopped and turned to Shubble. "Wait, I never told you my name!"
"Didn't have to," Shubble said matter-of-factly, "it only took one conversation to figure it out, and I heard several."
"...you've been stalking me?" Impulse asked.
"It sounds creepier when you put it like that," the gnome said, "but yeah. We're ghosts, our hobbies are either that or sleeping for the next 6 months."
"If it makes you feel any better, you're kinda boring, so there aren't any other ghosts following you," Sausage commented, letting out a small chuckle.
...I'm not gonna think too hard about the implications of that, Impulse thought to himself. "So you were telling me that you needed my help a couple nights ago? What exactly do you need me for?"
"Actually I wanted to take you near the cave entrance," Shubble explained, "I have a friend there who knows about a lot of prophecies, so I'm sure she can give you the whole spiel about them and which one you're in if I'm right,"
"Wait wait wait," Pause interjected, "this guy barely even knows how to be a ghost right now, and you're already telling me he's part of a prophecy?"
"Maybe, kinda, sorta?" Shubble said. "I mean he's soulbound and talking to ghosts when he's not dead and Gem loves to reread that one to me so I'm going out on a limb,"
"Oh crap, you weren't lying about that?" Beef asked, turning to Impulse. The brunette quietly groaned.
"No, I wasn't," he said bluntly. "It's never happened to me before, just when I got here I started transcending in my sleep,"
As he spoke, he started to get a feeling of dizziness again, quickly noticing the sign of the end of his visit. "Shubble, I'll have to go with you tomorrow night, I should be home by then though,"
"You're waking up already? The sun's not even coming up last I saw," they pointed out. As Impulse went to speak again, he suddenly got a sharp headache, like something had just battered him over the head, but despite that he still didn't wake up yet. As he squeezed his eyes shut from the pain, ignoring the ghosts around him passing their concerns, his closed-eye vision showed him something he didn't notice before. A green chord, faintly glowing, ran from his chest and to the side of him. Following the string, it led to another green heart, placed right in the middle of Bdubs's chest.
At first he thought Bdubs was still asleep, but his soulbound squeezed Impulse's living arm and let out a sob, finally causing the taller brunette to jolt awake.
The place was silent, safe for the quiet cries of the shorter. Impulse blinked the sleepy daze out of his eyes and wrapped both of his arms around his bound.
"Honey? Are you okay?" Impulse whispered as his bound looked up.
"S-sorry, I didn't mean to- to wake you up..." Bdubs stammered.
"No, no it's fine, don't apologize for that," Impulse assured, rubbing Bdubs's back comfortingly. "What happened?"
"Just- just a bad dream... th-that's all..." Bdubs said, sniffling.
They both closed their eyes, and Bdubs calmed down after a good while, but neither of them seemed to fall back asleep.