When Harvey first arrived at the apartment, what, two weeks ago, he thought everything was gonna be normal.
No ghosties, no weird voices in his head echoing random words like "diet seven-up" and "yer a wizard Harry!" and that ever elusive "dune buggy."
But boy was he wrong.
Not more than a few hours into getting to know the rest of the group, he heard a faint whisper from down the hall.
Not one- two voices bickering in the distance.
"Oh my god, shut up Nick!"
"What, you don't like my singing?"
He could hear agonizingly bad caterwauling.
Harvey winced, trying to ignore the faint off key singing, but it was simply too much.
He excused himself from the group, saying that he was feeling light headed and wanted to get some fresh air.
"You alright?" the blonde- Clay, asked.
"Yeha yeah," he reassured him. "Just a headache. I've been getting them recently."
Accepting a bottle of water and heading out of the apartment, down to the next floor and down the hall, he heard the voices get louder.
"I was a girl in a village doing alright, then I became a princess over-"
"OH MY GOD, NICK SHUT UP!"
Harvey turned the corner, expecting to see a couple of guys animatedly bickering, but there was nothing.
"Hello?" he called out, tentatively.
"I'm so excited to beeeeeeee-"
"Oh my god, I know no one else can hear us, but is it possible for you to shut up for one second??"
Harvey winced, a thrumming pain developing just behind his eyes.
"Yeah, Nick, shut up," Harvey echoed softly, massaging his temple.
"Wait, did someone say something?"
"I don't know, I couldn't hear over your terrible screaming."
He looked around, confused.
"Hello?" he called out. "Is there someone there?"
"You can hear us?" a slightly higher pitched voice called out. He had just a hint of a British accent, but not from a particular region that Harvey knew of.
"God yes," Harvey replied, walking down the hallways. "You guys are so disruptive, I could hear you from the floor above."
He peered down another branching hallway, to see two pale figures sat down on the ground.
"Oh, he can see us too," the other responded.
The specters looked like normal people, just with the transparency turned up all the way.
There was one boy wearing black adidas track pants and vans, paired with a white sweatshirt. He was toying with a strip of white fabric, currently tied loosely around his wrist.
The other sat across from him in the hall.
He was wearing a light grey hoodie with a white rectangle and red border embroidered on the front. Perched atop his head were a pair of glasses- a slight blue tint to them.
"You . . . guys are dead?"
The one in white sighed, looking up at him.
"Yep."
"Oh. Sorry, I'm Harvey."
"Nick."
"I'm George," the one in grey offered.
"Wait, did you guys know Clay? Were you his roomates that-"
"Got killed?" George asked. "Yeah, that's us."
"Oh shit, man. I'm sorry."
Shaking his head, Nick shifted over, allowing Harvey to sit beside him on the wall.
"It's fine, there was nothing we could have done. We died saving Clay, only to get to annoy each other for the rest of eternity."
"Yeah," George echoed. "Besides, it's okay. Now we can phase through stuff and Nick can sing as terribly as he wants and the only person who has to suffer is me. Not that that's a good thing."
The three continued to talk, their conversation going in all weird directions.
They were soon interrupted by footsteps coming down the hall.
"Harvey?" a familiar voice called out.
In an instant, George froze up, going pale- well, as pale as a ghost can turn.
"Yeah?"
Clay turned into that branching hallway, looking confused.
At the same moment, George stood up, reaching out to his friend, just inches away.
"Dude, it's been almost an hour. What are you doing?"
Harvey glanced at George, who solemnly shook his head.
"Let him move on," he said, a sad smile tugging at the corner of his lips.
"Oh, I heard a spirit down here. They got hit by a car when the power went out."
Clay furrowed his brow.
"Huh, that's weird. Nobody noticed you were gone and Vincent couldn't hear you. I had to track you over here."
Chuckling, he added, "It's almost like if George were . . ."
He shook his head.
"Well, anyways. If you want to sit down here and converse with ghosties, I'm not stopping you. Just tell us where you are next time, okay?"
"Of course."
George reached out, as though to touch him, but his hand only passed right through the blonde.
Clay turned to leave, but hesitated for a moment, looking right at the empty space where George was.
"I don't suppose you've seen anyone else around?"
Harvey replied with a simple no.
Clay seemed to deflate a little at that.
"Oh, okay then," he said quietly before walking away.
Once Clay was out of earshot, Harvey turned back to the two spirits.
Nick was slumped back against the wall, leaving George with a sad look in his eyes, still focused on some little spot down the hallway.
"Hold on, I think I'm influenced by your guys' abilities," Harvey said slowly, unsure if he should continue the conversation.
"Yeah," Nick replied. "Dude, that's pretty cool."
He reached over to George, still frozen in the same spot.
"Can I?" he asked.
He turned and nodded.
"Sure."
Harvey grabbed hold of his hand, connecting instead of passing through air.
He felt a rush of cold, a shiver going up his spine.
Nick's expression changed to that of sadness to confusion, then amazement.
"Oh my god, you can- what?"
Harvey looked down, expecting to see nothing, but realized that his entire body was still visible.
"Wait how do-"
"You can't actually go invisible," George clarified. "It's just some weird thing where your brain tricks other people's into thinking you're not there."
"Dude."
After a long pause, Harvey let go of his hand, feeling that first coldness fade away.
"I'm sorry," he said, sitting back down next to Nick.
"For what?" he responded.
"I don't know, I feel guilty I guess."
"Don't be. It's gonna be okay."
a/n: why are all my title drops in harvey's chapters lmao
so this was another chapter i was for sure going to write : basically where harvey meets george but he basically asks him not to tell clay and just let him move on. did i think it would be this far into the book? no, but whatever. (sorry it took so long lmao) also MY RANKINGS FINALLY CAME BACK i panicked at first when they all disappeared.
can we just talk about all the amazing collabs we got in quarantine that we definitely didn't deserve but got anyways? like dream, george, and wilbur all meeting up, then skeppy and sapnap, and then a few days ago we got wilbur and james marriott if you watch the commentary crew.
but anyways, thank you guys so much for reading! we hit 18k views which is dude, fucking mind blowing. love you guys! :))))