FicWad

Gonzo peered intently through the darkness and the thick leaves, trying to catch even the faintest glimmer of light. He was so busy peering intently that he completely missed the tree root that reached out to trip him. With a startled oath, he frantically windmilled his arms to keep himself upright, dropping his bug net in the process. "Damnit!"

He was about to simply give up. He had better things to do with his time than wander around Avon in the middle of the night searching for fireflies for Peewee's adorable little niece. In fact, as he rooted through the surrounding shrubs trying to find his fallen net, he found himself struggling to remember why he'd agreed to this wild goose chase - or rather bug chase - to begin with.

Oh yes, that was right. Peewee would give him a black eye if he didn't, then the apes' adorable (and temperamental) niece would black the other one. So it was that, having retrieved his bug net, he returned to peering intently through the darkness for anything even remotely like the tell tale glimmer of a firefly.

He wondered if Pippy or Aziz were having any luck. How would he know if they were? Perhaps they'd already caught a bug and were back at Peewee's, watching the adorable little hellspawn play with her new pet. The thought made him grind his teeth.

He tripped over another tree root.

"That does it!" the irate koala announced to the dark and the trees and the fireflies that he was sure were hiding from him. "I've had enough of this! I'm going to bed and bugger Peewee and his little niece!" Strangely, that announcement made him feel better. Shoulders squared, spine straight, he spun purposefully on his heel -

- And found himself staring at a small glowing ball of light which certainly wasn't a firefly. Actually, it looked like a little ball of blue flame, just hovering in mid-air. Despite the fact it was glowing, the light didn't seem to reach very far. Instead a sense of coldness seeped off of it, dropping the surrounding air at least ten degrees in temperature.

Something about the cold little fire made Gonzo's hair stand on end. He took a step backwards. It followed him, at which point, Gonzo Koala did what any sensible animal would have done.

He turned and ran screaming into the night.



"A demonic firefly?" Wolf stared disbelieving at the koala huddled on his sofa. It had taken five minutes and half a mug of hot chocolate (which he was still nursing) after Gonzo had come banging frantically on his door to get the koala to actually say what was going on, but now that he'd heard the story, Wolf could sort of understand why. It was wholly unbelievable.

"That's what I said, isn't it?" Gonzo scowled over the rim of his mug. "What, were you not listening? Except it wasn't a firefly. It was like a little ball of fire just hanging there with no wings or antennae or body or anything!" He took another, frantic little sip of hot chocolate. Wolf was beginning to think he should have gone over to Raven's and gotten some brandy to put in with the chocolate as well. Gonzo was certainly drinking it as if it were alcohol.

"I was listening, I was listening." Sighing, Wolf sat down on one of his other sofas and ran his fingers through his hair. He really didn't know what to say. After all, he'd gotten a degree in marketing and communications, not crazy koalas. "Come on, Gonzo, give me a break. It's not what you'd call the most believable story in the world."

"I'm not crazy!"

"And would you believe me if I came to you and said I'd seen a demonic...whatever that thing's supposed to be?"

Gonzo opened his mouth, then stopped, clearly thinking about that. He finally scowled, hunched further back into the black leather of the sofa, and muttered, "No."

"All right then." Pleased that they were at least in the same square, Wolf tried to figure out what the next step was. Clearly something was going on. Gonzo was many things - touchy, cantankerous, and crude to name a few - but he wasn't a coward. He also wasn't very prone to imagining things, which meant he'd seen something, and if he said it wasn't a firefly, well then. It wasn't a firefly. The question was, what was it? He almost wanted to go over and ask Raven for a book on entomology. He was sure the other man had one. Perhaps there was some sort of glowing gnat he wasn't aware of?

There was a kind of quiet slurp as Gonzo finished his hot chocolate. "Look, I don't want you to think I'm some sort of 'fraidy cat, but I don't want to go back over to Peewee's on my own. Can you at least walk with me?"

"Sure." Wolf smiled and stood, reaching for his shoes. "And hey, this way if the thing shows up again, I'll know what it looks like. We'll be a step ahead, right?"

"Right." Gonzo nodded, setting his empty mug down next to one of Wolf's ferns. "Just don't you dare mention this to the others when we get to Peewee's, got it mate?"

It didn't take the glaring koala to convince Wolf. The mere thought of trying to explain to Peewee that Gonzo had seen a demonic not-firefly was not something he relished. "No worries. Come on."

It was a lovely night, really. The air was a bit nippy, but above the little square that housed Avon's four humans the sky was clear and the stars all visible. Two of the other houses in the square were dark, their owners sensibly asleep. The lights in Raven's upper story were still glowing brightly. Wolf paused for a heartbeat to wonder what the other man was up to, then shook his head and headed off through the darkness after Gonzo. Knowing Raven, he was probably sitting with his nose buried in some book on history or rocks or something similar.

Gonzo was muttering to himself. "I hope Aziz or Pippy got one of those damn bugs. I don't want to deal with that little half-pint ape if she doesn't have one already."

"Oh come on, she's not that bad, is she?" Wolf frowned. "What's her name again? Jessy?"

"Jenny." Gonzo corrected him. With a snort of exasperation, the koala punted a stone through the grass. "And she wouldn't be so bad if she weren't so cute."

"Okay, I don't follow."

"Think of it this way - if an ugly girl asks you to buy her something, you have no problem telling her no, right? Especially if she pouts at you."

Admittedly, Wolf wasn't used to girls of any level of beauty asking him to buy him things, but he got the general idea, so he nodded. "Yeah."

"But if a cute girl asks and you say no and she pouts, you feel guilty 'cause you made the cute girl upset. You follow, mate?"

"Yeah, I follow."

"Well, Jenny's like that. She's cute, she's good at guilt, and if that doesn't help, she's a gorilla. She'll deck you."

For some reason, this concept made Wolf think of Peewee in a dress with a bow on his head. He didn't know whether to laugh or be very, very frightened. Given Gonzo's reaction, frightened was probably his best bet.

"Excuse me?"

"Why, what did you do?" Gonzo asked.

Wolf stopped and blinked at the koala. "I was about to ask you the same thing."

"Ah, excuse me, over here." The voice came from the right, apparently from the middle of a clump of bushes.

Wolf frowned and took a step forward while Gonzo hung back a little bit. "Yes? Who are you?" He scanned the bushes. "Where are you?"

"Oh, sorry." The voice replied, sheepish. "I keep forgetting." Slowly, just above the bushes directly in front of Wolf, a shape took form. It was pale and transparent and looked like it was formed from gathering fog.

Gonzo whimpered "Oh not another one!" and took off running across the bridge toward Peewee's house.

"Wait, please!" The transparent shape stretched out one, thin appendage that was sort of arm like in appearance and frowned. Now that it was fully formed it looked to Wolf vaguely like an odd shaped balloon with little stick arms, beady eyes, and a huge clown mouth. "I won't hurt you! I just need to ask a favor."

There was a rather large, panicky part of Wolf's brain that wanted to follow Gonzo's lead and run. On the other hand the ghost - because really, there was nothing else the fog-balloon with a face could be - couldn't exactly be called 'frightening'. Still wary, Wolf asked, "What's the favor?"

"Well, you see, there are these five spirits that I'm supposed to be bringing to the Great Spirit," the ghost explained, ringing his hands. "The only problem is I've lost them! Or, rather, they seem to have escaped. Spirits are very slippery you know. I had all five of them when I entered this town, then one got away and while I was looking for it the next one wriggled free and before I knew it, I had none! If I don't catch them by four o'clock, I'm in big trouble!"

"I'll agree that sucks, but what does it have to do with me?"

"I, um, well." The ghost dipped a bit closer to the ground, his tail disappearing into the foliage. "I don't really have a net, you see, or any other really good way to catch them, so I was rather hoping you might be able to find them for me?" The clown frown turned into a hopeful clown smile. "The other one, the koala who was with you, I saw him earlier with a net, so I'd hoped to ask him, really. But if you have a net, you'd have as much of a chance as he did! And I wouldn't ask you to do this for free. I'll definitely give you something in exchange!"

Perhaps he was paranoid or perhaps he'd read too many stories about people making deals with the devil, but Wolf was nervous. "How did you catch them in the first place if you had no net?"

"Oh, I didn't. The Great Spirit found someone else to do that. I was just supposed to deliver them."

"I see. And how am I supposed to hold onto them if you couldn't?"

"Oh." The ghost's beady eyes widened and his smile changed back to a frown. "Oh, I hadn't thought of that. You wouldn't be able to hold all five, would you? Slippery as they are and with a net, you'd only be able to hold one at a time." He started to ring his hands again. "I...I don't know. Could you maybe put them in some sort of container? They can't really go through things that well, being lesser spirits and all, they're just really slippery."

"I don't know..." Wolf checked his watch. It was already twelve thirty and he was tired. He wanted to go to bed, not go chasing around town looking for ghosts.

"Please, please I'm begging you! I'll give you something really nice! Or I could pull weeds or paint your roof or anything! I just don't want the Great Spirit mad at me!" The ghost rung his hands and looked like he was about to cry. It was really pathetic.

"All right, all right!" Wolf sighed. He had bug cages at home that he could spare. It was a nice night. It couldn't possibly take that long, could it? "I'll see what I can do."

"Oh thank you!" The ghost gushed. "I'll wait right here so you don't have to find me!"

Wolf shook his head and turned, then stopped as something clicked in the back of his mind. "These spirits. They don't happen to look like little floating balls of blue fire, do they?"

"Yes! Oh, yes, they do! Have you seen them already?"

Repressing a groan, Wolf shook his head again. "No, no I haven't."



By two am, Wolf was ready to scream. He was tired. He was cranky. A brisk wind had turned the night chilly and blown clouds over the moon so he couldn't see properly. He had scratches on his legs from scrambling through the bush and a sore ankle from where he'd tripped and fallen. He had a lovely bruise forming on his ass from where he'd backed into a tree. His fingers were cramped from curling around his bug net and the still empty bug container.

All in all, as he stalked through Raven's garden, he felt like a colossal fool.

As if agreeing with him, his ankle gave a particularly nasty pang. "Shit!" He quickly leaned against the side of Raven's house, his bug net clattering against the wood siding, and took the pressure off the ankle. He looked down, peering through the darkness, and tried to judge whether or not the foot was swelling. It was, unfortunately, impossible. He settled for rubbing the area just above the ankle.

There was a sliding sound directly above him.

"Hello? Is someone down there?"

Wolf swore again, silently this time, then looked up to find Raven leaning out what should be, if Wolf had the house layout correctly, his bedroom window. "It's just me."

"Wolf?" The other man tilted his head and Wolf could imagine him squinting down through his glasses and the darkness. "What on earth are you doing out at this time of night?"

It had always been a very strongly held belief in Wolf's family that honesty was the best policy. However, standing in Raven's garden in the middle of the night with a sore ankle and a bug net, he had to question whether it was a good idea right now. After all, Raven was an academic, an English and history scholar, someone who dealt in fact. Wolf had never heard him even discuss famous literary ghost stories, let alone a belief in the supernatural. Still, this was Raven. If he trusted the man enough to date him, he might as well trust him with this. After all, it was the truth. "I'm ghost hunting."

"Beg pardon?"

Wolf winced and repeated himself, a bit more sheepishly. "I'm ghost hunting. Gonzo and I ran into a ghost earlier on the way to Peewee's," he seriously hoped that no one other than Raven happened within hearing range, "and the ghost asked me to find five other ghosts for him. So I'm ghost hunting. I have until four o'clock."

There was a long moment of silence, followed by a somewhat dubious, "I see. Well, I wish you luck." Without further comment, Raven withdrew back into his bedroom and shut the window.

"Well, that was lovely." Wolf could feel his cheeks turning red. "He probably thinks I'm losing my mind or drunk or something. Damnit, could this night get any worse?"

From somewhere overhead, there was a roll of thunder.



Gonzo was right. The spirits looked like demonic fireflies.

Of course, in the pouring, chilly autumn rain they managed to look like a swarm of demonic fireflies as their light reflected in the deluge of raindrops, but if Wolf focused his very tired eyes, he could still - he thought - identify the main glowing ball.

It was three am and this was the first he'd found.

Taking careful aim, he swung his net, only to have the little ball dodge neatly out of the way. At least he thought it dodged. He might have just missed. "Oh come on, you little fucker!"

The spirit glowed at him.

He tried again. This time the spirit dodged, but that was all right because his tired hand wavered and he managed to drop the net over it anyway. For a minute he was afraid that despite what the main ghost had said it was going to slip through the net and float off into the night, but the netting held.

Wolf smiled. "Hah, gottcha bastard."

The spirit tried to slip away from him when he reached in to grab it, but he found that if he squeezed it tight there was a sort of soft, squishy core that he could hold onto. He could also see the bones in his fingers through the glow, as if he were stretching them in front of a chilly, slightly clammy flashlight.

For a long moment he just stood and stared at the spirit in his hand. It was trying to get away. He didn't know how he could tell, but something in the fluttering wing feeling beating against his fingers told him that the spirit wanted its freedom.

He looked down at the little bug cage in his hand.

He couldn't blame it, he supposed. That cage was rather cramped, especially if he was going to fit five spirits into it. And who would want to go in a cage anyway? And why? He had to wonder who the Great Spirit was and why it was so keen to get the little spirits. What had the little done? Were they criminals or something? And why didn't the Great Spirit come to get them itself?

He blinked.

It was raining. It was pouring. He was soaked to the skin and freezing and was just standing there in the middle of the forest debating the morality of catching ghosts when he had four more of the damn things to catch before he could go to bed.

Cursing himself for an idiot, he shoved the spirit into the bug cage. For good measure, he glared at it. "I hope the Great Spirit eats you."



The second spirit had been floating through the small grove of fruit trees around Eunice's house. He'd had to climb to the first set of branches of a pear tree to get it. His ankle hated him.

The third spirit was down on the beach, hovering over the water, just out of reach from the shore. He'd been up to his calves in water by the time he snagged it.

Now he sat glaring at the fourth spirit which was hovering, again apparently just out of reach, off the sharp embankment next to Dotty's house.

He was certain the damn things were taunting him.

Scooting his shoes as close to the drop off point as he could, he tried to judge the distance. If he lunged just right, keeping his weight on his good ankle, he might be able to get the damn spook, if he was lucky. If he wasn't lucky, it was a good two or three foot drop to the path leading down to the town's lower level, and then he'd probably continue rolling for a bit.

His sleep deprived brain wanted to go for it.

His ankle wanted him to give it up as a bad job.

Sighing, he set the bug container down and balanced on his good foot. He offered up a quick prayer, hefted his net above his head, and lunged. The net came down right over the spirit -

- and the ground under him half crumbled, half sloughed away, toppling him over like an unbalanced tree. He somehow managed to keep from screaming as he dropped and again when he landed on the handle of his butterfly net.

When he looked up, there were three glowing balls of flame sitting on the ground in front of him. He frowned at them and they reluctantly merged into one, pinned neatly in the net. Satisfied that he didn't have a concussion, he sat up, careful to keep the net flush with the ground so the spirit didn't escape.

His ribs felt bruised. His pants were covered in mud, as was the side of him that had hit the ground. It felt like he'd picked up a couple more scrapes and possibly put a rip in his shirt.

He liked that shirt.

"I swear, if the last one of you bastards is up on the roof of Nookington's," he snarled, grabbing the spirit out of the net, "I'm going to tell that ghost to go up and grab it himself."




"You found them all!"

"Yeah, I did, didn't I?" The last one had been hiding, of all places, just behind Gonzo's house. Wolf stared at the five - wait, no, ten, no, eight, no, no, only five - little glowing balls filling the bug cage dangling from his nearly nerveless fingers. Looking at them made him feel slightly nauseous. "Here," he thrust the cage at the silly looking balloon ghost who'd started the whole mess in the first place. "Take them."

"Oh gladly! Thank you so very, very much!" The ghost reached out, cold not-fingers brushing Wolf's hands as he took the cage. He was smiling like an idiot and clearly rather beside himself with glee.

Wolf could have cared less.

The ghost stuck the cage...somewhere. It looked like he shoved the little plastic box with its glowing contents into a pocket, except he wasn't wearing clothes and therefore couldn't have pockets. He then turned and beamed at Wolf. "You deserve the best reward in the world! What can I give you? Anything! Furniture, clothing, jewelry, you name it!"

Wolf stared blearily at the ghost, half formed ideas flickering through his head. A boyfriend. Girlfriend. A cup of hot chocolate. His bed. A good night sleep. He almost said "you can never show up here again" and left it at that. Still, some part of his mind that had managed to stay awake, warm, clean, and unscratched told him that this was a once in a life time opportunity and besides, after all that trouble he didn't want some second rate gift, did he?

No, of course he didn't.

Then again, did he care enough to think of a good gift?

No. No, he didn't, but the ghost was sitting there looking at him, patiently waiting like an obedient spaniel, waiting for him to pick a reward for finding some stupid spirits that Gonzo should have, by all rights, been the one hunting for anyway. Hell, Gonzo had found the first one. In fact, this entire damned situation wouldn't have even happened if Gonzo hadn't been hunting for fireflies and had Jenny even gotten one? He didn't know. He had no way of knowing. But he had a wish to burn, so why not? "Gonzo, the koala who was with me when I first ran into you - give him a firefly."

The ghost blinked. "A firefly? That's all? But you did the work, don't you want something for yourself?"

"No!" Wolf tried not to scream. After all, the ghost was trying to be nice and responsible and acknowledging that he'd gone through a lot of trouble. "I, look, I appreciate it, but I really can't think of anything right now. Just call it my good deed for the day and let's be done with it, okay?"

"Okay." The ghost dimmed a little, then brightened like a floating light bulb. "I'll deliver the firefly on my way out of town!"

"Thank you."

"No, no, thank you!" The ghost started to fade. "Thanks to you, I won't get in trouble! Thanks to you..." and it was gone, leaving Wolf standing in the dark and the rain with a bug net, clothing that was covered in mud, and more scrapes and bruises than he really wanted to contemplate.

On the bright side, his sore ankle had gone numb.

With a tired sigh, he turned and started trudging back to his house. If he woke up in the morning and discovered this had all been a dream, he was going to be very upset.



"Done ghost hunting?"

Wolf nearly jumped out of his skin. He spun violently, landed on his bad ankle, and crashed against his front door, knocking over a large, flat something that hadn't been there when he left. "SHIT! Ow."

"Are you all right? You look a mess."

Wolf looked up. Raven was standing not three feet away under the semi-protection of an umbrella. Behind him, the lights in his house were all still on. Grimacing, Wolf pushed himself away from the door. "Yeah, I'm fine. Just did something to my ankle earlier."

"It's not broken, is it?"

"No, I can still walk." Waving off the other man's concern, Wolf bent down and picked up the whatever-it-was he'd knocked over. "And I'm done ghost hunting. Found 'em all. Going to bed now." He started to examine the whatever-it-was - which turned out to be a large, rectangular package wrapped in plastic - then hesitated, squinting at Raven through the rain and the stringy veil of his bangs. "What're you doing still up?"

"Waiting for you." Raven replied. "I wanted to make sure you got home all right. I also thought, perhaps, with the rain, that you'd want something to drink." He nodded at the package. "What's that?"

Wolf blinked, completely missing the question. "You have to be to work by nine."

"I can take a nap when I get home. What is that?"

"I don't know! Christ, give me a chance to look at it!" Scowling, Wolf started searching the package for a card. He found one tucked under the long, taped edge, safe from the rain. He looked back up at Raven. "Here, bring that umbrella over here, will you?"

"I suppose it would hurt you to ask nicely." Despite the sarcasm, the other man complied without question.

"At this point in history, yes." Wolf squeezed himself as far under the umbrella as he could without actually leaning up against Raven's nice, mostly dry clothing.

He got an arm around his waist for his efforts.

With a sigh and a ghost of a smile, he leaned up against Raven's side, taking the opportunity to get as much weight off his foot as possible, and opened the card. The writing was odd - shaky chicken scratch that looked like the writer was just learning to write or hadn't held a pen in years - so it took a minute to decipher. If he squinted just right though and angled the paper into the light from Raven's window, he could make it out. "Dear Wolf. Thank you again for your help tonight. I've delivered the firefly to your friend Gonzo as you requested, but I simply couldn't leave without giving you something as well. I hope you understand and that you will accept this rare painting. Sincerely, Wisp."

"Well, at least you seem to have gotten something out of this other than a sore ankle."

"Whether I wanted it or not." Wolf laughed a little, feeling faintly sick. "Whatever. I'll worry about it in the morning."

"Why don't you worry about it over that drink I mentioned?" Raven nuzzled at Wolf's hair. "Possibly after a nice hot shower, wearing a nice, dry set of pyjamas?"

"Raven, I'm tired!"

"Yes, I'd gathered. But you're also filthy and cold and you really should have that ankle looked at." It was impossible to see the other man's expression, but Wolf had the distinct feeling he was being smirked at. "Besides, I want to hear about this ghost of yours."

Wolf snorted and pulled reluctantly back out into the rain, limping toward Raven's front door. "All right, fine. But if you laugh at me even once, I'm never speaking to you again."

"Understood."

"I mean it."

"I believe you."



Finished