My fingers tapped impatiently against the black granite topped reception desk. The lobby had been completely abandoned, which would have been eerie if it wasn't two in the morning. But it was precisely this fact that had made me impatient, or perhaps it was that my Delta flight had been delayed two hours and than another three, or that the car rental had given me a Hummer, instead of the Prius I had requested online. My brother-in-law, the environmental lawyer, would most likely have a fit when he saw me pulling up in THAT yellow monstrosity. Now, to top it all off, when I just wanted to go to sleep in a nicely made bed, no one was there to give me a key. A small sign on that smooth black granite read: 24-Hour Reception. Yeah, FUCKING sure. As I let out another exasperated sigh, a young blond skittered back to her post.

"Omigosh. I'm sooooo sorry," she said, looking at me all doe-eyed with her baby blues. Her uniform, which consisted of a too-tight black dress, looked like it cut off the circulation to her…well everything. Normally, I would have offered her a charming smile, ran a hand through my thick brown hair and gotten a free breakfast out of a bit of hopeless flirting. However, I was very aware of my five o'clock shadow, dark circles and disheveled hair so I'd just have to pay for my own fucking breakfast.

"The reservations under Stuart McAllister," I mumbled while flinging a driver's license and credit card towards her. She 'hmphed' at my curtness, turned towards the computer screen, and quickly produced one of those electric swipe keys.

"Room three-oh-five. Do you need a porter, Mr. McAllister?" she feigned a smile. I shook my head, sliding her a twenty, collecting my luggage, and heading towards the elevator.

Room 305 was located two doors down and to the left of the elevators, and when I opened that plain white door, I let out a sigh of relief. As I entered, the bed came into view and oh what a beautiful bed it was. King-sized, made up with a large down comforter, and four neatly set pillows, it was the epitome of comfort. Closing the door behind me, dropping my bag in the corner, I launched myself towards the bed. It took me exactly two seconds to kick off my shoes, extract my tie and lodge myself between the sheets. Ah, sleep.

"Aren't you going to change? Or at least brush your teeth." Bloody hell. BLOODY FUCKING HELL. Turning around in the bed, I sat up facing the direction the voice had come from. He had settled himself onto the damask chaise, his long legs folded over one another, each hand rested on a bent knee. His large oyster colored eyes were agleam causing me to temporarily lose my breath. He looked so…sylph-like. He bit his lower lip and cocked a brow waiting for a response. I only grunted.

"It's quite unhygienic to sleep in dirty clothing." He wavered slightly, becoming translucent before returning to opacity. Did I mention I could see ghosts? It had been a "skill" of mine since I was nine. It had earned me four years in therapy, before I learned it was best not to acknowledge my 'gift'. My mother simply called it an over active imagination, my father had ignored his "insane" son. It seemed the rumor-mill that surrounded me stopped when I published my first crime novel and the New York Times put it on their bestseller's list. Good stuff that. Currently, however I was quite tired and not into being mothered by the intangible sort.

"Why don't you just tell me what your unfinished business is? That way I can sort it out and you can stop haunting me." It had been nearly a year. It was just after the holiday season that Valentyne Josias of Bristol had evanesced in front of me and permanently attached himself to my side.

"Allister, you quite well know that I have no unfinished business. Now, why don't you just change your sweat-ridden shirt?"

"Well, Valentyne. Why don't you just fucking pass on," I huffed and pulled the sheets over my head. Ah, sleep. And later the remorse would come.

He wasn't there when I poked my head out from underneath my sheets. He wasn't there when I had finally bothered to change my shirt, shower, and brush my teeth. There was no one to leave me a prim and proper thank you; no one to make a supercilious comment about how my wearing a t-shirt that said, "Christmas is a time when you get homesick-even when you're home" was inappropriate. I wasn't convinced that Valentyne Josias of Bristol had passed on. He was just being a fucking huffy girlfriend. Well, I had been given enough cold-shoulder treatments to realize the best fucking way to deal…was time.

Home isn't a word of comfort for me. It's never emitted that warm, fuzzy feeling its' supposed too. When you've been harassed by apparitions in your living room, turned the corner to find one sitting at the kitchen table, or even one lying patiently in your bedroom, Home does not equate comfort. Family doesn't do it for me, either. My father still doesn't acknowledge he has a son. My mother makes attempts but I was scarred too young. My sister's the only one to break that mold. I can't help but love her, despite her poor choice in a spouse. And then there's Jonas.

"Uncle Stu! Uncle Stu! Uncle Stu!" I hadn't even gotten past the door and my sister, before a flash of bright Christmas red and warm chocolate brown launched itself into my arms.

"Jonas, calm down. You'll give Smithy a heart attack." My sister snorted at the nickname I have for my brother in-law. Who, at this very moment, had a horrified expression on his face whilst looking out the window.

"What. Is. That!" he grumbled. Because apparently we've gone back the telegraph days, where every word needs a dramatic –STOP- at the end.

"A car."

"A CAR. A CAR. THAT IS NOT A DAMNED CAR," he's turned a shade of red that matches his son's Christmas sweater quite well.

"Darling, please calm down." My sister's got a hand on her swelling belly and one over her mouth. She's trying to cover that age-old grin of amusement that I love to cause. I know she, secretly, loves it when I tease her husband. Smithy makes it so easy.

"Couldn't do anything about it, Smith. Flight was delayed and then they didn't have anymore environmentally friendly cars lying around. Could show you my order, had a Prius reserved online."

"Well, alright. It's just good you got a car I suppose." He's the better man out of us both, despite being so dull. He lets me go because Jonas and Sal love me and I make them smile.

"OH. COOL. CAN I HAVE A RIDE, UNCLE STU?" Jonas asks, while staring out the window.

"WHAT?" John's roaring, again, but Sal has the right idea by steering him into the kitchen with a, "Let's check on the turkey, honey."

"Sure, kid. I'll take you for a ride tomorrow." I take a seat on the old leather recliner. It's tan leather cracking and darkened with age, yet still soft. Jonas has found his spot on a nearby couch, beaming at me.

Jonas McAllister-Smith is my nephew, son to Sally McAllister and John Smith, and eight years old. It was last winter around this time that he decided to share his secret with.

"I can see ghosts. Like that boy in the Sixth Sense! When I told Grandpa, he said I was crazy like you!" he had stated, so matter of factly. He's a lot smarter than most children his age. Intuitive, sharp, and when I told him not to tell anyone he knew why. John and Sal would send him to one of the top shrinks in Boston; it'd leave his spirit broken. That was the best part of Jonas, the part I like most. He had that gleam of innocence that I had once had and then lost.

"Did you help that old woman with her husband?" he asked, curiously while flipping through a bunch of channels. He stopped at Charlie Brown's Christmas and put it on mute.

"I did. She was thankful to you, too. Said you calmed her down." Being a medium or a "Ghost Whisperer" like Jennifer Love Hewitt isn't a job for an eight year old. Jonas sends most requests for help my way. It's the least I can do to hope he has a relatively normal life.

"Did she…you know?" Pass on. Go over. Disappear. Is what he means. But I don't expect him to say it without being slightly disturbed. It's peaceful enough, to resolve one's unfinished business and move on. But the notion of death and the afterlife is beyond an eight year-olds' full comprehension. Fuck, it's beyond an adult's too.

"Yeah she did. She was a happy old hag." It's a lie what they say, about going back to the height of your beauty when you die. Sad, but if you die old, hope you have no unfinished business to resolve. I'd hate to fucking go around haunting people with my backside looking like a prune with a shriveled up dick covered in liver spots. Great image isn't it. Valentyne died young, blessed to haunt me with the type of classic beauty that's uncommon today. I don't know much about Val, despite being together for nearly a year. He died drowning, some old steamer sunk in the Atlantic. Not the Titanic. His family moved to America in an attempt he'd marry into wealth. They come from some old aristocratic line in Bristol. Valentyne Josias was the middle son. He died in 1888, but he won't tell me his age. I'd guess around twenty, though he could be younger. I can count all the things I know about Val on one hand.

There are other things I know about him, things that aren't so factual. His eyes are grey, big and bright. They're the color of oyster shells, however unromantic that sounds. He pouts when he's angry. Bites his bottom lip when he's thinking, not in the middle but slight off to the side. His favorite hobby is to chastise me. He quirks his eyebrow when he's asking a rhetorical question. His favorite adjectives for me are, "boorish, crass and vulgar." Mine for him are, "stubborn, prudish, and 'fucking' anal," or so he thinks. Truthfully they are: "lissome, angelic, and 'fucking' asshole." There's much more to this list, more than I can count on my hands and toes. In fact, if I can get any cornier, I'd say there are more things on that list than bones in my body.

God damn, I'm thinking about him again.

I'd say I want to stop, but I'd be lying. And you'd know it, too.

"Uncle Stu! Are you listening?" Jonas shakes me, as if I'd fallen asleep.

"Sorry, lost in thought."

"Mom wants you in the kitchen."

"Yeah, I'll be right there."

The snow had stopped now, leaving a fresh blanket of cotton fluff on the doorstep. The Yellow Monstrosity, which had been tinged in white frost, looked awkward next to the prim silver hybrid, glazed over in icing. I could hear the laughter from inside, faintly, and puffs of hazy smoke lifted into the night sky. Ah, they had started up the fireplace. Board games, laughing children, and chestnuts roasting on a fucking fire, how cliché. From my jacket, I produced a carton of imported cigs: Dunhill's. They were my favorite. Lighting one, I pinched it between my index and middle fingers, holding it to my mouth, and basking in the glory of nicotine. I could go a whole day without one, but when the stress piled up, there was nothing more glorious than that tiny white cylinder. The clock inside had read 8:30, and the fact that I hadn't seen or heard from Valentyne since three this morning, had made me anxious. I was almost ready to acknowledge my idiocy.

"That thing will blacken your lungs and you will promptly die of suffocation." I smirked, inwardly.

"Val, when was the last time I gave a shit what you think?" I watched as he appeared in front of me. Still those wide grey eyes, still that hay-colored hair that miraculously shone at night, and still those full lips, pouting at me. He appeared to be angry, though it was easy to see through that façade.

"Do you find it necessary to speak of such vulgarity?" he huffed, but produced no visible breath. I dropped the cigarette, crushing it underneath my boot, and dirtying the pristine snow.

"Shitting is vulgar? Might I remind you that you shat when you were alive." He had noticed my subtle attempt to distract him from my action. His gaze moved towards the crushed being before looking defiantly but approvingly at me.

"I did not SHIT, as you say it. Yes, I excreted feces like any normal being but – "

"I'm sorry," I said softly, leaning towards him a bit. His oyster eyes looked more silver, now. I could make out the fragments of blue in them. Lately, all I had wanted to do was look at those odd orbs. Val sighed, pursing his lips, and then widening them slightly into a smile.

"Allister, sometimes I wonder why people enjoy your bodies of fiction. If they reflect anything of your oratory skills, they must be vulgar and horrid." That was his way of forgiving me, an oddly verbose critique.

"Val, I think I might be losing the circulation to my dick. I'm heading inside," I stated, turning towards the door, looking over my shoulder I motioned for him to follow. Maybe my father was right, maybe I was fucking insane. My best friend was a bloody figment of my over-active imagination. But nonetheless, Valentyne Josias of fucking Bristol was my little shard of Utopia.

Author's Note:

The holiday season has got me inspired, again. More Stuart and Val in the next chapter. Please review!