Glow In The Dark

Currently, I’m involved in a long-distance relationship? So I’d say I’m willing to put in a good deal of effort. She makes it easy, though, to be honest. I’ve really been surprised how easy it is...visits back and forth, I call her almost every day...and she writes me. A lot. Typical love letter stuff, she even sprays it with her perfume. Says it’s so I have something that smells like her...as if that doesn’t apply to every one of my shirts she steals to wear when she comes to see me.

Still, she writes enough that the place sometimes smells like her, and to be honest? I enjoy that.

The hardest part of our relationship is continuing to grow as a couple when we spend so much time apart. Sometimes those phone calls are hard, because we really make an effort to talk. She tells me about her workload and the cases she handles with her friends, and I try to be as honest as I can about my own caseload...about what I’m seeing and how.

Sometimes she’s been surprisingly helpful. Every day, she’s emailing me some link to a site with helpful hints on meditation, wards against spirits, and info about various types of haunting. Since the day she learned the truth, she’s been so supportive of what I am, what I do...still, it’s hard for me to talk about. The things I see and feel....

And she doesn’t let me keep it from her. Sometimes it bothers me, even pisses me off...but I’m better for it. And I know I do the same to her, I make her talk about whatever’s on her mind. Many a night I’ve been her sounding board on something she would have to hang up on me for so she could call Lindsey or someone to tell them about some new angle she’s just seen.

The hardest thing about being with Cindy is the fact that she takes the pain away, that she makes me leave it. She tears it out of my hands and she makes me better for it. She makes letting go okay...and it’s not an easy thing.

But the longer we’re together, the more I realize that the good things are never easy. She’s proof of that.

Muse: Frank Taylor
Fandom: Haunted
Words: 382
Partner: Cindy Thomas (ourclubrocks) [Women's Murder Club]

Cindy is...nothing like me. Style-wise, I mean. We’re night and day there. She’s just so...full of light. And that’s just not me...hasn’t been for a long time. It’s not something I’m proud of or want...it’s just how it is. It’s one of the reasons I’m so glad that we met...when I’m with her, things aren’t so dark all the time.

She’s all about color and flair...she dresses nicely, she’s got that bright red hair...even her notebooks are splashy and eye-catching. She’s perky and she’s cheerful without being over the top or annoying, and I love that about her.

Me? I’m not exactly the most social of people...haven’t been since I we lost Kevin. I don’t get out much, and my style? I really don’t have one. My wardrobe is functional, my apartment’s livable, if barely...I’m just me. However pathetic that is.

At least...with the exception of my kitchen.

Cindy’s only been down once or twice since we first met...and yeah, got together...but the last time she was here, she was complaining about my kitchen. No curtains, no cute coffee mugs even though I drink a ton, and I thought she was going to have conniptions when she started waving around the hand towel I have in there. It’s green. It’s old, but it’s clean.

She leaves on Sunday to fly back up to San Francisco...and when I get home, she’s left this stack of striped kitchen towels on my counter, all different colors. Clearly I’m meant to use them...or else. I know enough about women to know that.

I don’t know when she’s coming back again...but I am using the towels. And not because I have to.

It’s the only piece of real color in the room...and it’s the only piece of Cindy in the whole house ‘til she visits again.

Muse: Frank Taylor
Fandom: Haunted
Words: 314
Partner: Cindy Thomas (ourclubrocks) [Women's Murder Club]

He hadn't left his apartment in three days. They wouldn't let him.

Frank sat slumped against a far wall in wifebeater and jeans, feet bare and toes bruised...he was pretty sure that at least one pinky toe was broken from kicking the wall in frustration. Their voices rang in his head and resonated through his flesh with every pass.

"Just let it go, Frank."

Lifting his head sharply, Frank could feel the ice cold fingers against his chin as Simon crouched beside him. Something about this was wrong...wrong in so many ways...

"Why do you want to help her?"

"Now that one's easy." Simon drawled, hissing softly. Cold, still air beat against his flesh and made him shiver...devoid of hope, desperate for sleep, agonizing over injuries both self-inflicted and spirit borne.

"Just let it go, Frank...you know how it goes."

The spirit wanted in...the spirit wanted blood. Sympathy made him weak, Simon made him vulnerable. Focus...he had to focus. Earth and water, sea and sky, keep me safe from harm. The elements could protect him if he wanted it. He had power now...he'd worked so long and he had power now...

Simon laughed, wrapping a hand around his neck. "That's the beauty of power, Frank...you've got room enough for just one more."

Terror gripped him just as a knock came at his door. His mouth opened to warn off the visitor.

It was distraction enough for the dead to overtake him.

^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^

A minute and a half later, the door to Frank's office opened, the glass panel still covered by a slab of plywood. Frank limped into view, peering curiously at the redhead on the other side. Little was unusual about him...with the exception of the fact that his warm brown eyes were now several shades lighter, taking on more of an amber color.

"Yes?" he asked of the woman curiously.

I don’t believe in reincarnation. Actually, that’s the wrong expression to use...I know reincarnation isn’t real. At least I know in an ‘on a scale of one to ten, give it an eight’ capacity. No one knows anything for sure, but considering I deal with the dead on a pretty routine basis? I can safely say I’ve never encountered a single incident of reincarnation.

Souls come to me...I help them...they move on. I don’t see them again.

I have, however, been dead personally, so if you want to talk about reincarnation? There is a somewhat oddball version I can ascribe to...that movie Chris Rock made, the knockoff of Heaven Can Wait. He dies too soon, but when his body’s destroyed, he gets another one...the body of a man who died so recently that he can claim it for his own before anyone’s the wiser. I can deal with that idea of reincarnation. I’ve had the out of body experience, I’ve seen the path to the other side. Hell, I brought a piece of it home with me.

Okay...if you want a good reincarnation story? I can give you one. Down the street from the Blackhawk there’s this new age bookstore. I’ve frequented it often enough over the years that I’m on a first name basis with the owner, girl named Shelley. Anyway, she offered to read my aura, so I let her. *She* claims in a past life, I was a knight...you heard me right, a knight, medieval style. Chivalry, swearing fealty to my lord, the whole bit. She recommended a past life regression specialist to me...hypnotherapy or something.

After my previous experiences with being forcibly rendered unconscious, I declined. Knowing my luck, Simon would choose that exact time to stop in and start walking around in my bones for a while, and frankly? That’s the *last* thing I need.

Muse: Frank Taylor
Fandom: HAUNTED
Words: 315

[locked from anyone unaware of Frank’s powers]

My life’s filled with secrets...it has been for a few years now. This power I have to deal with the dead...it’s a blessing and a curse. I never asked for it...but in a lot of ways, I’m grateful for it.

In a weird way...I guess my biggest secret is that I’ve learned to *enjoy* it.

I fell in love with a dead woman. I cleared the memory of a noble man that suffered for his country. I found a young woman who died as tragically as anyone can, and I did it with her sister’s help...her *dead* sister. Sometimes I wonder if I brought Paris and Tierney together...if they needed my help to find each other, even more than they wanted their parents to find out Paris’s fate.

I’ve helped a lot of people in a lot of really satisfying ways...and it hurts a little to admit it? But I don’t think it would have felt this good if I’d done the same for the living. Aiding the dead this way...it’s bittersweet, and it always stings, but these people have often been wronged...badly wronged. These voices I hear? They’re the voices of the murder victims in unsolved cases. They’re the spirits of the past searching for vindication, no matter how long overdue. Some of them are bad, but most of them? They’re just angry, lost, and grieving for their own lives.

There’s always hope for the living, no matter what the circumstances...but for the dead? There is no hope...except for finishing what they left behind, squaring up their lives before they can move on to whatever lies after.

It’s not an easy thing to do...but I try. And in the end, sometimes it ends up turning out well not just for the spirits I help, but for me, too. Julia Caufield was one of those occasions.

So I guess that’s it...I like seeing dead people.

And please...no Sixth Sense jokes.

[/locked]

Muse: Frank Taylor
Fandom: Haunted
Words: 331

Now that’s kind of a trick question...I mean, I’m a private detective. It’s not exactly an illustrious profession...infamous is a much better word, if you ask me. The jobs I take...the things I do...they’re not always exactly decent, y’know? I mean...I’ve taken my fair share of missing persons cases, murders and kidnappings...they *do* happen. But? A fair amount of my paying business is unfaithful spouses, insurance fraud...stuff like that.

So in the workplace? I have few to NO scruples when it comes to getting what I want.

In my personal life? Well...that’s another story. My ex wife...when I divorced her, I still loved her, but I did it because it was better for her...maybe for both of us, I still don’t really know. Thing is, though...I wanted her. I really did...but I couldn’t keep her. I *chose* not to keep her.

There are those times, though...like that day I woke up in a hotel room I’d never seen before...my first experience with possession. I didn’t stop ‘til I had answers...until I knew for sure what the hell was happening to me. It helped, though, that I was being suspected of attempted murder, y’know? Even if the IA rat on my ass was the real attacker...it lit a fire under me.

There are things in my personal life I hesitate about...work’s never a question. I want it...I own it. But I guess that’s always been part of my problem: my job has always been my life.

Now? It still is...but in a far more literal sense.

So it begs the question...what am I willing to do to get what I want?

You’ll have to be a little more specific.

Muse: Frank Taylor
Fandom: Haunted
Words: 296

[locked to all those who are unaware of the existence of the supernatural]

Given the chance, I’d tell Jess and Marcus about me...what really happened when I came back from the dead. I’d explain every single solitary crazy thing I’ve said or done in the last few years so that my best friend and my ex-wife, the woman I *still* love, wouldn’t have to worry anymore. They could stop thinking I was a nut and realize the kind of work I’ve been doing.

I’d tell Marcus the truth about the Delacour family...about Abby’s vengeful ghost, and why the woman he loved really died. I’d tell him how she killed her family under Abby’s influence, tell him everything he needed to know until he realized that he couldn’t have saved her...that he did everything humanly possible. I’d let him know that the brief time he had with Rachel was the most, and the best he could have done for her.

I’d tell Jess why the man she was dating tried to kill her. I’d tell her about Simon Dean, how he took away the once chance either one of us might have had at getting any answers about Kevin...any closure. Maybe one day she and Nick would get back together...maybe she’d be less afraid to find someone. I’d tell her about Julia...how she changed me, how much she still means to me.

But above all else? I’d enjoy the freedom...the weight that would come off my shoulders, the fact that nothing would be hidden. I know it’s a little selfish, but it’s not easy to hide who you are...and I’ve grown to accept this part of myself. Simon’s a small example of the downside of what I am...but it’s *really* small when you look at everything else. I’ve done a lot of good, and I’m proud of that.

Still...if I could tell them...I’d almost be normal again. No secrets, no monsters in the closet. And I’d give the world for that.

[/locked]


Muse: Frank Taylor
Fandom: Haunted
Words: 326

Religion’s kind of a tricky question for me, given my unique situation. I was raised in a Catholic home, but when I got older my faith in anything...it came and went, it’s not unusual. I had a relationship with God that most people have, I would assume: when I talked, He listened.

Now...seeing the things that I see, knowing what I do about what comes after, it makes me wonder. I know the Church doesn’t support pagan stuff, or the arcane...but I can’t help what I see, what I know to be true. When I first got this ability to see ghosts? I was uncomfortable with it, not to mention the numerous visits I found myself paying to new age and occult bookstores. It felt...wrong, somehow. Over time, though, it got easier...shed my upbringing, as it were.

I don’t believe in the afterlife, I *know* it’s real. Life doesn’t end when we die. But what I believe...I believe that curses and black magick? They can be just as real. I’ve seen it firsthand in a ghost that cursed her own child with her dying breath and haunted an entire family for generations, wiping every last one of them out.

But God and the Devil? All the things that make up religion? I don’t really know if I buy into it...the only thing I know for sure is that belief is a powerful tool...it *makes* things real, viable, tangible.

I think for now I’ll stick to what I can see. After all...I know it sounds corny, but I *do* see dead people.

Muse: Frank Taylor
Fandom: Haunted
Words: 269

I have a few habits I’ve never really kicked...biting my nails is one of them. I mean, I don’t gnaw away at my fingers the way I used to when I was a kid, but when I get particularly absorbed in something, I tend to chew on my nails...when the biting *does* start, I know I’m working too hard.

My weirdest habit, though? Comes from my grandfather. He was a blue collar kinda guy from the South Bronx. Cop, just like my dad...but the one thing he always prided himself on was being a gentleman. He always used to tell me that anyone with money could ‘put on airs.’ He saw the delicacy and manners they had as something artificial...used to say that a true gentleman had patched holes in the elbows of his jacket when he lay it across a puddle so a lady didn’t have to step in the mud.

He *did* stuff like that, too...never saw him do the puddle thing, but he lit cigarettes for women, always had a handkerchief in his pocket “just in case,” never let a woman pay when he took her to dinner...he may have been a working stiff, but he was never anything less than a class act.

When he passed away, everyone in my family was heartbroken...he was just that kind of guy. His funeral had one of the biggest turnouts I’d ever seen. It was kind of like a tribute when I started carrying a handkerchief in my own pocket...never had much need to use it, but every time I pulled it out, or even felt it there in my pocket, I thought of Grandad.

It’s been nearly a decade since he passed on, but I still keep that handkerchief on me...it’s just gotten to where I don’t feel right without it. It’s gotten to be where carrying it isn’t just a way of remembering, but a force of habit.

And somehow? I think that wherever my grandfather is...he’d be proud of that fact.

Muse: Frank Taylor
Fandom: Haunted
Words: 343

How others perceive me...I don’t think you really wanna know. Hell, I’m not sure *I* really wanna know.

Nah...seriously? I know how people see me...a nut. When I committed myself a while back, nobody was surprised. The folks in on it kept hinting that I ought to take advantage.

Okay...maybe I’m being a little unfair to my close friends...some of them might label me ‘eccentric’ to be polite, and some probably think I’m pretty harmless. Jess and Marcus, though...I know they worry about me. And it kills me every day that I can’t tell them the truth of what’s happening to me.

I want to tell them why I can’t sleep at night. I want them to know what I see, what I’m really *doing* above and beyond my job. It’s turned into a calling, one that I just might be able to handle...if not for the likes of Simon.

Wonder just how he perceives me...easy mark? A pushover? He must...after all, he’s still here. Still trying to finish the job he started four years ago.

Guess that’s where our perceptions differ. He sees me as a corpse waiting to lie still...I see myself as his own personal Purgatory, and the longer I survive? The longer he suffers.

It’s not much...but when there’s nothing else to hold on to? It’s enough.

Muse: Frank Taylor
Fandom: Haunted
Words: 229