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Danny was excited to get to know his two new roommates.
The three of them hadn’t lived together for very long but it was already such a relief to live with two normal humans after the disaster that had been his childhood. He had no intention of telling them about him being a ghost; from now on he would live a normal life, thank you very much.
Or so he had thought.
I’m sure there’s a perfectly normal explanation for this, he tried to convince himself as he stared at the blood bags stacked on the middle shelf of the fridge. Even in his parents’ house they hadn’t mixed biological matter from humans with food. “Uh… guys?”
“Hm?” Tucker questioned distractedly from his position at the kitchen table, face-deep in his PDA.
“Why is there blood in the fridge?”
“What?” Tucker snorted before pausing and getting up to come stand next to Danny, peering into the open fridge. “You’re serious.”
Danny unnecessarily gestured towards the bags. “I take it you’re not the one who put them there?”
“Nah, man.” Tucker shook his head. “What would I do with blood?”
They both blinked at the pile of bags sitting between the lettuce and the milk before turning towards the one closed bedroom door and yelling in unison, “Sam?!”
“What?!” Sam called from inside her room, sounding absolutely cheerful as always.
Danny and Tucker exchanged worried looks before Danny squared his shoulders and called, “Can you come out here for a second?!”
She stomped into the kitchen with a growl. “I swear it’s like I’m still living with my parents.”
Danny ignored her comment, instead getting right down to business. “Why is there blood in the fridge?”
Sam paused as her eyes fixed on the fridge in question, her anger immediately replaced by a careful blankness. Danny was just about to ask her if she was okay when she walked over, removed Danny’s hand that was holding the door open, and then slowly closed it.
Danny raised an unimpressed eyebrow. “We know they’re still there.”
Sam crossed her arms over her chest. “I’m… storing them. For a friend.”
“You don’t have friends,” Tucker helpfully pointed out.
“It’s for a family recipe." Sam said as she tapped her long painted nails on one arm. “You know. Blood… pudding.”
Danny thought about the blood bags that looked like they had been taken right out of a hospital and wrinkled his nose with a frown. “That doesn’t sound right.”
“Are you an expert on blood pudding?”
“Well, no,” Danny allowed. He wasn’t an expert in any kind of cooking, because of the aforementioned disaster of a childhood.
“Then stay out of it!” Sam bit out, nails now digging into her crossed arms.
“Didn’t you say that you’re vegan?!” Danny asked in exasperation. “Blood can’t be vegan!” Then he paused, unsure. “….Right?”
Tucker wrinkled his nose. “Besides, I’m pretty sure that’s human blood.”
“No? It’s not?” Sam fixed Tucker with a glare. “And how would you know?!”
“It… smells like it?” Tucker hesitated. “And. It’s in actual blood bags?”
Sam was silent for a second before relenting. “That’s fair.”
“Sam...” Danny started carefully. “You didn’t kill anyone, right?”
“No, of course not!”
Danny let out a breath of relief. “Then I don’t care.”
“How can you not care?!” Tucker demanded. “There is human blood. In our kitchen.”
Danny shrugged. “It’s not the worst thing I’ve found in a fridge. So long as the bags don’t come to life, it should be fine?”
Tucker frowned. “…What?”
Danny had a second to panic that he had said something too strange that would make them question him before Sam nodded and easily said, “Yeah, I hate when that happens.”
Tucker shook his head. “Alright, time out.” He fixed Sam and Danny with a glare
“Maybe we need to set up some ground rules. Starting with no blood in the fridge.”
“Well, where should I store it then? And you know…” Sam trailed off, pursing her lips in thought before slowly continuing, “Everyone has blood in the fridge. For emergencies.”
“They do?” Danny asked, suddenly unsure. He didn’t really grow up with normal parents and they had had all kinds of stuff in the fridge and since becoming a ghost he had admittedly lost touch with what was normal for humans.
Sam nodded, looking a lot more sure of herself. “Yeah. All normal humans do.”
Danny straightened up. “I’m a normal human!”
Should he get some blood too? But where did she even get it? He couldn’t very well ask now or she might figure out that he wasn’t human.
His parents may very well have had some blood hidden in the fridge, he had admittedly not dug too deep in the fridge growing up. For safety reasons. He had wanted to keep both his hands.
Sam turned to Tucker with a challenging look on her face. “Don’t you have some blood?”
Tucker shifted his gaze away from her as he shuffled his feet. “I—Not right now. But yeah, of course I normally do. Just like everyone else.”
Sam nodded. Short and decisive. Her shoulders dropped. “Honestly, it’s like you two were raised by wolves.”
Tucker froze and then barked out a strained laugh. “Ha! No? Wolves? That’s ridiculous!”
Danny nodded. “Of course not, we all know that we have to…” he hesitated, squinting as he tried to gauge Sam’s reaction, “Drink? It?”
Sam scoffed. “Obviously.”
Danny let out a breath of relief. At least that was familiar; he drank ectoplasm all the time.
Tucker frowned. “But maybe we don’t have to store it in the fridge?”
“It goes bad otherwise,” Sam said easily. “Besides, if anything is getting thrown out it should be your dog food. It stinks.”
Tucker straightened up in indignation. “It’s not dog food! It’s my snacks!
“It’s dog food.” Sam deadpanned before narrowing her eyes in challenge. “You get to keep the kibble and I get to keep the blood.”
Danny perked up. “What do I get to keep?”
“Your disgusting green smoothies,” Sam said without missing a beat.
“Yeah,” Tucker agreed, “if anything smells horrible it’s those. What do you even put in them?!”
Danny slumped in defeat. “Maybe we should just get mini fridges for our rooms.”
“Yeah,” Tucker agreed.
Sam nodded. “Sounds good.”
Sam didn’t know what to make of her new roommates.
Danny and Tucker were both funny and chill and Sam genuinely liked hanging with them, even if they were just normal humans. Confusingly, she found that she wanted to keep living with them, which in turn meant that she couldn’t let them find out about her being a vampire.
All this to say; she hated Tucker’s new obsession with taking photos with this old polaroid camera he had managed to find somewhere. So far, neither he nor Danny seemed to understand what was going wrong when she didn’t show up in the printed images. It helped that Danny also seemed to be… photographically challenged.
“Let's try taking another photo,” Tucker said as he fiddled with the old camera in his hands.
“Can we focus on finding a couch instead? Like we said we would?” Sam said with a sigh as she looked around the enormous second hand store they had found themselves in.
“Yeah,” Danny agreed as he lightly punched Tucker in the arm. “Since someone let their dog piss all over the old one.”
Tucker muttered under his breath, “Well, if it hadn’t smelled so bad I wouldn’t have—” He stopped, cleared his throat and asked loudly, “What about this one?” as he pointed to a monstrosity that looked to be made out of leather, sweat and shredded dreams.
“I would rather die again,” Danny said in a deadpan.
Sam couldn’t help but agree. “You mean so that it already looks like an animal mauled it?”
Tucker threw himself on the couch and immediately proved how much it sagged. He didn’t seem deterred as he argued, “But the leather means it’ll be easier to clean off all the fur—”
Sam cut him off, “Just don’t bring animals into the apartment!”
“There’s no animal!” Tucker shot back. “It’s just… shedding. Normal human shedding. It’s spring you know.”
“Oooooh. Right,” Danny immediately nodded. “I do that too.”
Sam, not wanting them to question her lack of knowledge about what humans did or didn’t do, joined in with a hesitant nod of her own. “Mhm. Typical humans.”
Danny made a bad attempt to sound casual as he pointed further into the store and said, “Well, I think I see a couch over there so I’m just gonna go and look!”
Tucker snorted and called after him, “You just wanna try on all the accessories!”
“I can’t hear you!” Danny called as he made a beeline for the countless racks with worthless trinkets passed down from grandmas.
Sam and Tucker continued on, passing by three flowery couches and one lime green one that Sam was certain that Danny would have loved. Thankfully they had turned a corner before he came bounding back with his arms laden with trinkets and gaudy jewelry. “Hey, Sam! I found a perfect necklace for such a straight laced girl as you!”
He snickered at his own joke as he held out a monstrosity of a silver necklace; beads and glittering stones galore, and smack-dab in the center was a cross. A cross.
“I’m allergic,” Sam said as she leaned away from the offending accessory.
Danny’s smile fell, hand still holding the necklace out to her. “To?”
“…Catholicism?”
Danny pouted. “Do you want it then, Tucker?”
Ticker shook his head, holding up his hands in front of him. “No. I’m allergic to silver.”
Danny lowered the awful necklace as he let out a sigh that was pitiful enough to make Sam say, “Let's try taking a photo again, alright?”
Tucker perked up and Danny immediately deposited his haul of trinkets on a nearby chair, a smile back on his face. Sam gave Tucker a pointed look and added, “Only to make you stop nagging us about it.”
“Whatever you need to tell yourself,” Tucker said with a grin before raising the clunky camera up, turned to face him. “Now come on, get in close!”
Sam was dragged in close on one side of Tucker at the same time as Danny pressed in on the other; their faces squished together at the same moment as Tucker snapped a photo. Sam immediately pulled away as they waited for the picture to print, only for it to show Tucker with his cheeks comically squished by seemingly nothing on one side and a smudged version of Danny with shining eyes on the other.
Sam slumped in relief at—once again—not being the only one not showing up properly in the photo at the same time as Tucker slumped in defeat. “Maaan, I don’t get it!”
Danny laughed and held his hand up towards Sam, “Can’t capture us! High five!”
Sam scoffed, crossing her arms over her chest, “I’m not going to–”
“Do you want me to take your photo?” An old lady interrupted them with a kind smile. “It’s been a while since I’ve used a polaroid, but I think I remember how.”
Before Sam could decline, Tucker had handed the camera over with a wide smile. “Yes! Thank you!”
Danny slung his arms over both their shoulders, dragging the three of them together. Sam gave an outraged shout but didn’t pull away.
The lady raised the camera. “Smile!”
Sam reluctantly did, encouraged by the arm over her shoulder, and the woman snapped a photo.
The woman frowned as she handed the camera back to a giddily excited Tucker. “Hey, excuse me for asking, but… What's wrong with your teeth? Is it some new trend?”
“What do you mean?” Danny asked with a tilt of his head as Tucker waited for the photo to print.
The woman looked unsure, the smile gone from her face. “You all have really big teeth. Or… fangs, I guess?”
Sam tensed at the mention of fangs but Danny just prodded his own mouth and said, “No? I think that’s normal?” Then he proceeded to smile wide enough to display his own set of fangs.
“Yeah, you’re right,” Tucker agreed distractedly. “We all have fangs and we’re all normal humans.”
Sam nodded, quick to agree. “Yeah, exactly!”
The woman frowned, muttered something under her breath and hurried away.
Tucker gave a happy shout when the picture finally printed. They gathered round to see and… The picture printed and showed a staticky outline in the general shape of Danny with one arm in the air where Sam had stood, and the other over Tucker’s who’s the only clear person in the photo. Again.
Tucker groaned. “That’s like the tenth photo that’s a bust. Why do they keep getting corrupted?!”
“I think it looks fine?” Sam said, trying for casual. She didn’t exactly like getting her picture taken. She didn’t know that humans could also have such issues getting captured on film, but she was relieved to find it out.
“Yeah!” Danny agreed. “Look, Sam was even smiling in that one!”
“How do you know?! She’s not showing up in the picture!” Tucker groaned.
Danny snorted, elbowing Sam in the side. “It looks like we're posing with a ghost!”
“You’re one to speak, you’re all… blurry?” Sam shot back.
Danny waved her off, “Eh, that’s normal. A lot of people are like that.”
Tucker pursed his lips in thought as he frowned. “They are?”
“Yes,” Sam agreed. “Look, both me and Danny show up weird in photos and we’re both normal humans.”
Danny turned wide eyes at Tucker. “You mean you always show up clearly in photos?”
“Eh? Yeah, no, of course I don’t!” Tucker assured them as he waved his hands frantically, almost dropping the camera.
Sam turned her nose up. “It's your fault for trying to take pictures with such a retro camera. Maybe it’s just too old.”
Tucker groaned in frustration, looking down at the old camera in his hands with betrayal in his eyes. “And I really wanted this polaroid camera to work… I've wanted to try one for so long.”
Sam heaved a sigh. “Let's just focus on finding a non-leathery couch.” Then she turned quickly and pointed a threatening finger at Danny. “And you’re not bringing the trash with you!”
Danny pouted and slowly put down the accessories he had scooped back up.
Tucker liked his new roommates and even though he didn’t necessarily want them to find out that he was a werewolf, he still wanted to keep living with them. So when he came home to find Danny dead on the couch, he was—understandably—a little upset.
Tucker let Danny’s wrist fall from his trembling hands as he bolted up from his kneeling position next to their new lime green couch. “Danny’s dead!”
Sam looked up sharply from the plants she was watering by the window. “What?!”
Danny sat up groggily. “What?”
Tucker jumped with a scream, and since it was getting a bit too close to the full moon for comfort, he instinctively snapped at Danny’s throat.
Which in turn made Danny yelp and then fall through the couch.
Before Tucker had time to even register that his roommate wasn’t dead, but was now instead halfway into their couch, Sam made a noise of surprise, dropped the watering can, and then… turned into a bat?
Tucker froze, glancing from Danny halfway through the couch and distinctly transparent, to what had been Sam just a second ago but was now a flying bat.
“Wait!” Danny said in a slightly echoing voice, “You’re a vampire?!”
“You’re a ghost?!” The bat demanded.
Tucker threw his hands in the air. “I’m a werewolf?!”
Danny and Sam turned to him and said in unison, “You’re a what?!”
Tucker shrugged and sat down on the couch, prompting Danny to duck down fully into it. “I felt left out.” And there was no use trying to keep the charade up any longer.
“Well. This is awkward,” said the couch.
The bat snorted.
And then they all broke down into laughter.
“Wait. Wait. Wait,” Danny said as he pulled himself out of the couch and sat down next to Tucker instead. “Does that mean that I’ve been trying to mimic a vampire and a werewolf to try and act more like a human?!”
Sam turned back into a human and perched on the armrest. “That explains so much. I thought I had just gotten really out of touch with humanity”
Tucker groaned into his hands as realization struck. “I asked how much they wanted for the blood bags at the hospital! They threatened to call the cops on me!”
Sam burst out laughing and Danny poked him in the side. “So. Did you want something before you declared me deceased?”
Tucker shook his head as he removed the hands from his face, not hiding his smile. “I just wanted to say that I’m going to be out for a few days.”
“Nooo,” Danny whined, slumping over the edge of the couch and promptly flopping down on the floor. “The full moon is coming up! I wanted to stargaze with you guys but you always leave during the full moon.” Danny paused, eyes wide. “Ooooh, right. Werewolf!”
Tucker snorted. “No. I’m just genetically predispositioned to react to the full moon. A lot of humans are.”
“No! No, they’re not!” Danny laughed.
Sam tilted her head with a smile and asked, “But do you have to go now?”
There was no reason to hide anymore. Tucker smiled wide as he said, “I guess not.”
Danny pumped his fist and whooped, “Yes! Stargazing here we come!”
“I call first dibs on the telescope!” Tucker immediately cut in.
“Over my dead body!” Danny cackled.
Tucker groaned. “Too soon!”
Sam paused and frowned before asking, “Wait. Tucker. Does this mean that you’re the one who pisse—”