dire engagements

it feels like we're ready to crack, these days, you and I

"Oh, you see them? The photos, I mean," Ronin asks with the sort of conversational ease that really ought not to be present when discussing the published images of a murder. "I didn't get a chance," he adds, almost to clarify why he's asking. "Not sure I really wanted to search for dead kids on purpose, you know?" That's a bit much even for Ghostwatch's charismatic host while waiting in the coffee line.

He sighs at Remi's considerations, wrinkling his nose and shrugging at the table. "Or," he says, opting to give his own two cents, "maybe she was just a really sick lady who never got the help she needed, and got obsessed with the sort of shit that can cause things like this to happen. They said they found runes carved around the in-ground well, you know. Wonder if it's still down there."

Scoffing, of course, to hear that Remi has not moved, Ronin claps the medium on the shoulder on the way past with a drawling, "Riiiight, a draft. I admire your commitment to the bit, y'know." And then it's onwards to upstairs, and he gets the answer to his previous question as Remi holds up his phone when they reach the landing. Furrowing his brow and glancing from the screen to the real image beyond, Ronin wrinkles his nose.

"What a mess," he mutters. "Alright, Isla is on her way up I think." Glancing behind them, he can hear the telltale sound of feet on floorboards, and the blonde appears with her camera in hand. "I'll introduce the room, then we'll have you give it the big psychic energy, and maybe start asking questions."

when it's just the two of us, only the two of us, I could die

Code 100% taken from the queeeeeeen herself, Sky <3

I don't know who I am, I don't know who I'll be

Remi shrugs, offering a noncommittal nod. "I like to do my research," he says simply, voice neutral enough to skate over the rest. The truth is, he’d fallen into a late-night spiral of grainy screenshots and crime scene forums with questionable moderation, and by the time he’d realised what he was looking at, it had already been burned behind his eyelids. But that isn’t something you admit out loud.

Ronin’s theory earns a quiet hum of agreement, though Remi’s gaze flicks back toward the floor beneath them at the mention of the runes. His jaw tightens, just slightly, but he doesn’t push the point. As Ronin claps him on the shoulder, Remi lifts one brow with the ghost of a smile. "If I’m doing a bit," he says mildly, "it’s one I didn’t write."

Upstairs, he finds himself hesitating at the door to the children’s room, eyes fixed on the handle. There’s nothing obviously strange about it—no blood, no symbols, no aura of imminent doom—but something about the stillness on the other side feels wrong in a way he can’t yet explain.

The sound of Isla’s boots on the floorboards breaks the moment. Remi straightens immediately, inhaling quietly through his nose and stepping back to give her room to frame Ronin in her shot, his fingers twitching once before he folds them neatly behind his back. "You want to use the music box for this one?" he asks, nodding toward the bedroom door. "Or we could try the Speak & Spell again." He glances sidelong at Ronin. "Who knows, maybe it's the sort of toy they'd have had."

but there's a light in the attic and I swear it's calling me

Code 100% taken from the queeeeeeen herself, Sky <3

it feels like we're ready to crack, these days, you and I

Isla's arrival means Ronin is too distracted to wonder for long about what Remi means by not writing the bit, and that's probably a good thing, because they're about to enter a room he's literally just scene on the medium's phone back when it was a bloodbath. He compartmentalises it like a pro, of course, glancing to Remi and nodding at his ideas. "Let's start with the music box and use the Speak & Spell as backup," he says. "Only because people eat that shit up when a creepy music box plays in a kid's room, y'know?"

Once Isla is happy with her framing and the shot, Ronin launches seamlessly into their next section, explaining the room before them and incorporating Remi's information about the crime scene as if it's history he's known all his life, rather than something learned in the past thirty seconds. He almost gets it done without incident, but as he reaches for the door handle he jumps back, zapped by what seems like an electric shock. "Fuck," he curses, glancing between them with raised eyebrows before trying again to open the door, letting it swing ominously open and into the square of dark.

Isla spends a moment zooming in on the shadowy rectangle of the doorframe before calling for the cut, and both she and Ronin burst into laughter that tries not to be nervous. "We can bleep out the swear, right?" He chuckles, gesturing for them to walk in. "It's too good not to keep."

Inside, the children's room is, of course, empty of any furniture or curtains or old bloodstains, the bare boards creaking underfoot, the window peeping out onto the van and its equipment. "Alright, Remi," Ronin says, his voice resuming its ghosthunter cadence. "This is the place - what do you think? Have we got any visitors with us?"

when it's just the two of us, only the two of us, I could die

Code 100% taken from the queeeeeeen herself, Sky <3

I don't know who I am, I don't know who I'll be

Remi nods wordlessly, stepping out of frame long enough to retrieve two music boxes from one of the crew cases. One is classic—worn tin with a little crank on the side and faded illustrations that might have once been clowns or cherubs, depending on your trauma. The other is sleeker, plastic and off-white, designed to play a few tinkling notes when someone passes by.

By the time he returns, Ronin’s already halfway through the intro. Remi only half-listens, used by now to the way the host can spin freshly googled lore like bedtime stories. The sudden curse makes him glance over, eyebrows raised. A wripple of surprise flickers across his features, though it’s gone by the time Isla cuts and they’re all laughing about it.

When Ronin gestures for him to take over, Remi clears his throat quietly and steps through the threshold into the children’s room.

The space is empty. Stark. The floorboards creak softly beneath his shoes. Pale moonlight spills in from the naked window, pooling on the floor like it’s trying to remember how to be warm. Remi stops at the centre of it, curls catching the faint glow, and lets his expression slip into that faraway look they always ask for; thoughtful, soft, just enough uncertainty to suggest something moving behind his eyes.

Speaking to the camera, though he doesn’t face it, Remi begins with, "the spirits of the young are often the ones who linger longest. They don’t always know what’s happened to them. Not really." His gaze stays fixed on a point near the corner of the room, somewhere just past the edge of moonlight. Then, glancing back over his shoulder into Isla’s lens, he adds quietly, "And if we had the choice between the unknown, or staying where we felt safe, where we played, where we were loved..." He shrugs. "How many of us would stay, too?"

He crouches, gently setting the motion-activated music box in the centre of the room. It’s small and white and delicate as a soap bubble. "This one plays if something moves nearby," he murmurs to the camera. The other box—older, heavier, he holds for a moment, then begins to crank the little handle, slowly. A lullaby spins into the room in a few soft, silvery notes. It’s sweet in the way that makes your teeth hurt. Hollow in the way that feels just a bit too close to memory. He stops winding it.

"I’d love it," he says, voice quiet, speaking to the empty air, "if someone wanted to play a few more notes for me." Then he sets the box gently on the windowsill, hands falling away, and lets the silence stretch.

but there's a light in the attic and I swear it's calling me

Code 100% taken from the queeeeeeen herself, Sky <3

it feels like we're ready to crack, these days, you and I

Knowing to let Remi have his moment in a way that the hosts of some shows never learn, Ronin steps out of the frame until the medium has finished his segment, and even then he doesn't interrupt, allowing the silence to stretch thin into the stale air. He doesn't realise he's holding his breath until it starts to burn in his lungs, and he lets out a low, soft breath before inhaling once more, gaze flicking between the moonlight spilling in from the window sill and Remi, haloed with curls and limned in the ghostly glow from outside.

His lips part as if to speak when the first tinny, tinkling notes from the music box play, as if something has scampered into the vicinity and has set it off. Ronin - still out of frame, luckily - jumps a bit and glances at Isla with raised brows. She nods proudly to Remi as if to tell him to keep going. It's rare to get something so soon after starting, and they've not even had to pull out any of their 'encouragements' yet. (I.e. causing a cold draught, making movement that would trigger the music box, faking answers to the Estes method and so on).

But Remi won't have to keep going - the music box picks up again a moment later. And it doesn't stop. "...Er." Ronin tilts his head. "Any chance it might be broken...?"

when it's just the two of us, only the two of us, I could die

Code 100% taken from the queeeeeeen herself, Sky <3

I don't know who I am, I don't know who I'll be

As the first fragile notes spill into the room, Remi glances up toward the camera with an expression caught somewhere between sheepish and did anyone else see that?, lips twitching in the faintest smile, like a man who’s just been caught bluffing at a poker table and realised he might be holding a winning hand after all.

He shrugs lightly. "Sometimes a draft can trigger it," he says, tone casual, almost apologetic. "What we’re really looking for is consistent—" The music box plays again. Not just a single phrase this time, not just the wind brushing past a sensitive hinge. The tune lilts out, bright and tinny and unbroken, the kind of sound that might’ve once meant bedtime but now cuts too clearly against the hush of the empty room.

Remi blinks slowly; his eyes flick to the camera again, then to the box, as if trying to read its intentions through cheap plastic and gears. For a second, he looks like he might say something else—, but then he seems to remember himself. You’re the medium, after all, he reminds himself before clearing his throat, gently, and shifting to sit cross-legged on the floor, careful to stay a few feet away from the toy. His hands rest lightly on his knees. There’s something almost reverent in the stillness that follows.

"Hello," he says softly, voice warm and even. "If there’s someone here with us, I want to thank you for the music. I quite like it." He glances once more at the box, then back toward the shadows near the door. "I’d like to play a game, if that’s alright." A pause. "If you’re here—and if you’d like to play—can you stop the music..and then start it again?"

He falls silent, but the house doesn't. The box keeps singing and then suddenly stops, like a finger pressed gently but firmly to a lip. Remi’s brows lift, lips parting in a quiet breath. Then, just as he leans forward a touch, the music starts again. The same hollow lullaby. A few silvery notes, bright and uncomfortably cheerful. "Good," he whispers, the word more exhale than sound. Encouraging. Warm. Like he’s speaking to someone very young, or very far away.

"Okay, I will explain the game I want to play," he says, shifting slightly where he sits. His accent, faint but distinct, rounds the edges of his words as he continues. "It’s one I played when I was a boy in Italy. My cousins and I—"

SLAM.

The sound tears up from downstairs, hard and sharp and unmistakably real. Not a creak. Not a draft. The crash of a door slamming shut with enough force to shake the old wood of the frame. Remi’s mouth stays open for half a second longer than it should, then he looks up, eyebrows raised, calm slipping into something more alert. His gaze cuts toward the hallway, then over to Isla behind the camera.

but there's a light in the attic and I swear it's calling me

Code 100% taken from the queeeeeeen herself, Sky <3

it feels like we're ready to crack, these days, you and I

As Remi earns his fucking paycheck and then some, Ronin is reaching out as if to grab Isla's arm and shake her as if to ask if she's seeing this too. Isla, for her part, is impatiently swatting him away in return, keen not to miss a single second of footage that is coming far too close to changing her mind on the existence of ghosts than she'd like. The music tinkles away, then stops, then starts again, Ronin's mouth softly opening in a mix of awe and delight.

He's just making a mental note to ask Remi to share his tricks and to demand to get in on that for next time when the SLAM from downstairs breaks through their lovely little playtime, like the sound of a parent coming home too early when you've arranged a party they said you couldn't have. Too startled to even gasp in shock, Ronin is whipping around and past Isla just as she's whirling around with the camera to get him back into frame (because no, she's not missing a single second of this either).

"Hey, everything alright?" Ronin calls as he hurries down the stairs, fully expecting the crew to have let one of the light stands or some other equipment fall the fuck over in the entryway. But no - when he gets to the bottom step, they're quiet and subdued and pale, and one of them is frowning deeply at the camera stationed over the dining room, which is showing little more than static.

"Isla," Ronin calls, and she's already on his heels as he goes to investigate.

Meanwhile, upstairs - if Remi hasn't already rushed to join them - the music box will still be playing, though there's a somehow frantic quality to it this time. A warning, perhaps, or a plea: don't go, don't leave us for what happens next.

when it's just the two of us, only the two of us, I could die

Code 100% taken from the queeeeeeen herself, Sky <3

I don't know who I am, I don't know who I'll be

Remi doesn’t move. The slam echoes up through the floorboards like the house exhaling around something stuck in its throat. Ronin and Isla vanish from the room in a flurry of footsteps and breath, but Remi stays seated in the pool of moonlight, spine stiff, palms flat to the floor.

The music box plays on, but it’s different now, too quick, too shrill. The melody was always eerie in its simplicity, but now it stumbles forward like a child running downhill, all momentum and no control. The notes trip over each other, desperate.

Remi’s heart thuds once. Then again, harder.

He leans forward a little, voice low. Barely audible. "You’re alright," he whispers, as if speaking to a cornered animal. "You’re safe. You don’t have to stay here. You can leave, if you want to."

The music falters for half a second, like something listening. "I know a bit about what it is like to—" Then the box flies. It hurls itself across the room with a violence that has nothing to do with old springs or rigged tricks. It crashes into the far wall and bursts apart; plastic shattering, metal guts spilling across the floorboards in a discordant clatter.

Remi flinches back hard, palms skidding on the wood. His breath catches in his throat as he stares up, straight into the corner of the room where one of Isla’s static cameras is mounted, its little red light blinking steadily like it saw everything and has no intention of interfering.

His voice breaks out of him, louder than intended. "Guys?"

but there's a light in the attic and I swear it's calling me

Code 100% taken from the queeeeeeen herself, Sky <3

it feels like we're ready to crack, these days, you and I

Downstairs the commotion is something muffled and echoing - shouts of someone get in here! and who flipped over the dining table? and why is the basement door open? covering the suddenly hysterical trill of the music box up in the children's room. Footsteps thunder across the bare boards of the ground floor, extra crew converging on the dining area as if to try to help or - and let's be honest, more likely - to try and capture as much footage as possible.

Remi's call goes unanswered, the camera blinking away with no one attending it. And before he can leave, the door to the bedroom slams shut, quick and desperate, the wood quivering in its frame as if to try to keep shut. And at first the medium won't be blamed for assuming that he's trapped inside with whatever ghoul resides in this old Americana nightmare; there's no sound from Ronin or the crew now, nothing but the held breath of children long since dead.

And then it starts: slow, soft footsteps from down the hall outside, like someone trying to keep their steps light. Someone who knows exactly where to step to stop the boards from creaking to wake up the children. Someone like a mother.

The terror in the room with Remi expands like a balloon. They were awake, they knew - they knew - and they couldn't stop her. The footsteps stop. The doorknob begins to twist.

when it's just the two of us, only the two of us, I could die

Code 100% taken from the queeeeeeen herself, Sky <3

I don't know who I am, I don't know who I'll be

Remi's eyes go wide, breath catching fast in his throat. Downstairs, the chaos blurs into noise: frantic voices, stomping feet, orders shouted. But none of it feels near. None of it feels helpful. His name doesn’t echo back. No one calls for him.

And then the bedroom door slams shut.

Hard.

The wood shakes in its frame like it wants to hold; not keep something out, but keep him in. His pulse jumps in his throat, and even then, the fear doesn’t rise like panic. It coils low in his belly, familiar. Not a first-time fear. Not the shallow flailing dread of a man who’s never met what lingers beyond the veil. He’s felt this before.

"In here!" Remi hisses, eyes scanning the room, waving both arms in a sharp, frantic arc as if to gather something unseen toward him, herding them. Protecting them. His voice drops again, urgent and low. "Venite, veloci. Qui dentro."

The closet door creaks slightly as he ducks inside, shuffling quickly back among shadows and splintered corners. He pulls the door almost shut, leaving it open just enough for breath, just enough to see. When he exhales, it fogs in front of him, a soft white plume curling in the dark. The warmth has fled like prey. The cold has weight now.

His hand slips beneath the collar of his sweater, fingers curling tight around the gold cross that rests against his chest. He pulls it free, presses a kiss to the centre; fast, reverent, and not for show, before tucking himself deeper into the dark, back against the wall of the closet, the cross clutched in one hand as the other hovers inches from the door.

but there's a light in the attic and I swear it's calling me

Code 100% taken from the queeeeeeen herself, Sky <3

it feels like we're ready to crack, these days, you and I

Without, the doorknob continues to inexorably twist, like someone trying to remember how it works - or perhaps trying to work around something that had been wedged into the latch once upon a time. The world beyond the bedroom is gone, the air thick and dread-cold. Once it appears that quiet and subtlety won't do it, something THUMPS against the door with the force of several grown men; a demonic shoulder trying to barge its way inside.

Twice more it tries, the attacks causing the floorboards to vibrate and plaster to crack and crumble from the walls before - quite abruptly - it all stops.

Is it because whatever force on the other side of the door has given up?

...Or is it because it's found another way in?

A final slam (and this one sounding strangely more human) against the bedroom door has it flying open as if there had never been any resistance, allowing an out of breath Ronin to gracelessly stumble inside. A couple other crew members are flanking him, but by the grace of whatever religion seems the friendliest right now, they haven't been needed.

"Fuck," Ronin curses. "Remi?"

when it's just the two of us, only the two of us, I could die

Code 100% taken from the queeeeeeen herself, Sky <3

I don't know who I am, I don't know who I'll be

Inside the dark, Remi doesn’t have room to move, but he doesn’t need it. He knows he isn’t alone, not really. Whatever’s pressed near him in that small space is cool, yes, and faint as a whisper, but it isn’t hostile. It isn’t the same as what’s outside.

He closes his eyes, whispers under his breath in Italian, soft and low. A comfort, maybe, or a prayer. Words meant for someone much younger than him, or much older. "Va tutto bene. Non siete soli." Something shifts behind his eyes; a door he’s kept locked for years groans quietly on its hinges, memory and meaning creeping out like sunlight under the edge of a blind. It prickles at the corners of his awareness—and then the bedroom explodes open.

The crash jars through the walls, loud and jarringly human this time. Light spills in, with Ronin’s voice following it. Remi flinches, but only for a heartbeat. Then the sound of Ronin’s voice cuts through whatever haze had started to gather behind his ribs, and he exhales sharply, shoulders sagging with something like relief. "Yeah," he breathes, voice hoarse but clear. He nudges the closet door open with one hand, the movement small and oddly careful, as if still half-afraid of what he might find on the other side.

There he is, curled into a compact knot of limbs, cross still clutched in one hand, the other bracing against the frame. He offers a sheepish smile, like a child caught hiding during a game that stopped being fun. Then, catching sight of the crew flanking Ronin, he clears his throat and begins the slow, awkward untangle of standing. "Sorry," he mutters, brushing dust from his knees and nodding toward the far wall. "I, uh… think we’ll need to replace the music box." What’s left of it glitters across the floor like spilled teeth.

but there's a light in the attic and I swear it's calling me

Code 100% taken from the queeeeeeen herself, Sky <3

it feels like we're ready to crack, these days, you and I

"Fuck the music box," Ronin says through a breathless laugh, shaking his head and stepping further into the room; already one of the crew is going to gather up the pieces while the other collects the as-of-yet un-exploded box from the windowsill. "Something is up with this fucking place - it's like it's booby trapped or something," he continues, padding across the room to hold out his hand and get the other man on his feet.

"The dining table flipped itself over and the basement door flew open. Then this door slammed shut and we couldn't get in - we were trying for almost a minute, I... did you not hear us...?" Brow furrowing briefly, Ronin evidently is not giving himself the time of day to think about this yet. Instead, he's already ushering everyone the fuck out of the room - and the house.

"We're gonna review all of tonight's footage and get someone out here to check the place over." You know, because clearly kids or psychopaths have rigged the house to go crazy, and it's definitely not ghosts. "We've got a permit for the week, so we can always come back."

when it's just the two of us, only the two of us, I could die

Code 100% taken from the queeeeeeen herself, Sky <3

I don't know who I am, I don't know who I'll be

Remi lets out a quiet laugh, the sound small and unsteady as it slips past the edges of his breath. There’s relief in it, unmistakably, but it’s the sort that still clings to the ribs like it hasn’t quite gotten permission to settle. He shoots Ronin a grin that’s a little too bright to be easy, brushing curls back from his forehead and giving a faint shake of his head. "Pretty sure Isla’s going to care about the music box," he murmurs, tone light, though his eyes flick toward the shattered remnants as another crew member kneels to gather them.

He’s already working through the logistics in his head; drafts, floor slope, maybe some kind of vibration pattern that could’ve flipped the table if enough pressure built up. It doesn’t hold water, not really, but it gives his hands something to do in his mind. When Ronin mentions the shouting, though, Remi’s head turns sharply, surprise flickering in his eyes. His brow furrows, and for a moment he just blinks, trying to square memory with reality. "I didn’t hear anything," he says finally, his voice low and uncertain in a way it hadn’t been even during the chaos. He glances down at the floorboards, then back to Ronin, shaking his head with the kind of wariness that doesn’t quite want to name what it’s beginning to suspect.

As the others begin to usher their way back down, Remi lingers in the doorway for half a breath longer than he should, gaze sweeping the room with something softer than suspicion. Not fear, not even reverence, just that same small thread of reluctance he might show if leaving someone behind. He draws in a slow breath and nods to himself, then turns to follow the rest of the crew.

"If nothing else," he says quietly to Ronin as they descend, "the camera in the corner should’ve caught the music box. Might make for a great promo clip." He mutters something under his breath as they reach the landing—a dry, distinctly unenthusiastic "great," at the thought of coming back.

Remi doesn’t linger long in the threshold of the dining room. He glances over to Isla, watching as she checks the screen on one of her monitors, and approaches with measured steps. "You need help with anything before I head out?" he asks, his voice back to low and even, steady despite everything that had just happened upstairs.

but there's a light in the attic and I swear it's calling me

Code 100% taken from the queeeeeeen herself, Sky <3