Chapter Text
"This week on Buzzfeed Unsolved we're investigating the Queen Elizabeth Hotel in San Francisco," Ben gestures to the old yet opulent hotel lobby around them, as Sammy gives the camera his trademark unimpressed stare. "We'll be trying to answer the question-"
"Dude, your shirt's eating the mic," Jack cuts him off from where he's holding the boom mic above them out of shot, Ben's oversized headphones currently blocking out pretty much anything ambient so he can get the audio feed clearly. "All I can hear is rustling."
"Leave it in, it's as close as we ever get to catching 'ghost voices' on camera," Sammy isn't ashamed to bust out the air quotes, although they do make it more difficult to move out of the way when Ben smacks him on the arm. "That's abuse, I'm calling my union."
"You know they won't let us unionise," it had been the topic of a lengthy, rambling communal vent in the van on the way up (which they're definitely going to have to delete before they hand the footage in for edit), and Sammy hopes he hasn't just set Ben off again. He can get… shouty. "Unless you're talking about the Union of Harassed Dads, which you're founder and president of."
"I was democratically elected, at least," Sammy mutters, deadpan, and doesn't miss the way Jack snorts out a dorky little laugh at the comment. It's unfairly cute. Sammy is in a permanent state of being victimised by his cuteness, these days.
"Little focus, guys," Emily is usually as willing to goof off as the rest of them, but her patience runs a little shorter behind the camera. The company is pretty forward thinking and good about equality issues, but it's still harder for her to get a director credit on a shoot than any of them. "Sammy, fix his mic before we all die of old age, please."
"I can fix my own mic," Ben grumbles, but doesn't stop Sammy from untangling the equipment and re-clipping it somewhere it isn't going to get drowned out by chiffon. At least, that's what he thinks the sheer fabric of Ben's shirt is.
Their shoots are often in abandoned locations which curtail Ben's adventurous fashion choices by temperature alone (although he's got some truly garish sweaters he's not afraid to bust out on camera), but given the chance his tastes run to the androgynous end of the spectrum. Unlike Sammy, who dresses purely to avoid being noticed, Ben isn't content until he stands out from the crowd.
It's part of what makes them work so well together as a team, and why they've taken off online. Fans enjoy the contrast between Sammy's sardonic scepticism and deadpan humour, and Ben's wide-eyed belief in the supernatural and insistence that they're respectful to the ghosts (apparitions) they 'encounter'. Ben's social media presence is wall to wall memes and political rants, whereas Sammy drops into Twitter to post a blurry picture of his shoe and then disappears for another three weeks.
They're weird, but they work.
"Okay, you're good," Jack gives them a thumbs up and they get back to the show. They're pressed for time in this location, seeing as it's still a functioning hotel and they've only got permission to film in the lobby for so long, so further snarking will just have to wait.
"The hotel has had numerous reports of spiritual activity over the decades, including a hanging man in the basement and a pair of star-crossed lovers who jumped from an upstairs balcony," Sammy refrains from making a joke about Ben's 'theory voice' (the overly-careful tone he gets when reading a prepared script), as his co-host turns to him. "What d'you think, Sammy? Are we more likely to find a dead guy downstairs, or a pair of apparitions up top?"
"I don't believe in love, so probably the dead guy," he deadpans straight at the camera, and Ben sighs audibly.
"Sammy Stevens starting out dark tonight, folks. Let's take a look at the history of the hotel and where some of these legends may have come from."
"Okay, cut," Emily calls from behind the camera, and Jack lowers the boom mic to roll out his shoulders… which doesn't immediately take up all of Sammy's attention at all. Seriously, it's an ongoing issue. "We're gonna get about twenty minutes of general discussion here for edit. Make sure you bring up-"
"Can I take a bathroom break first?" Ben pipes up, which predictably makes everyone else groan. The kid downs eight coffees a day and then wonders why he has to pee constantly, Sammy will never understand it. "I'll be quick!"
"Just turn off your mic this time, I don't need to hear your commentary again," Jack takes off his headphones anyway, just in case, as Ben keeps to his word and hurries off to the lobby bathroom. "I swear, one day he'll get a jump scare at the wrong moment and literally piss himself."
"And then we'll get a whole different kind of fan," Sammy mutters, trying not to smile too much when Jack snorts. At least someone finds his stupid jokes funny, even if Emily is giving them both a look he can't quite read.
"Niche content," Jack nods, solemnly, and this time Emily is the one who laughs. Even when she's trying to be sensible… at heart, she's just as silly as the rest of them.
It's a smooth start to the shoot, all told, and Sammy is very relieved that they're not in another 'haunted' abandoned insane asylum with no heat or lights. Shooting in a working building is a very different animal, even if they have to deal with some weird looks from the desk clerk when they start talking about the idea of ghostly sex noises coming from hotel rooms.
("But how could you tell it was a ghost, if it was coming from upstairs?"
"Hah, coming."
"... remind me why we make this show, again?")
The 'investigation' itself is one of their less creepy ones, which Ben seems pretty glad about. Personally, Sammy loves to see him almost have a heart attack every time a door creaks or the wind blows, but it's also pretty adorable how inordinately relieved Ben seems every time they don't find a demon lurking in each new room they enter.
When the show first started it was just the two of them, with Sammy snarking at Ben from behind the camera as they explored various abandoned locations and Ben had several near panic attacks a night from fear. Sammy never really intended to be in front of the camera, but their dynamic proved to be a fan favourite, and the more budget they were given, the more he felt obliged to go along with what Buzzfeed analytics said was successful.
He regrets that attitude entirely when they get up to the third floor corner bedroom.
"Room thirteen, really?"
"It's 313, technically," Jack appears on camera briefly, as he occasionally does, to give them the room key. He's also got a bit of a cult following among their fans, although they mostly like to describe him as a cryptid since he so rarely shows up in an episode. Sammy had totally not been offended when he found out people shipped Jack and Ben rather than Jack and him. Not at all.
"Okay, so here we are in room thirteen," Ben narrates as he opens the door, and Sammy rolls his eyes expansively because of course he sticks with the horror movie version of things. "This is reportedly where Patrick O'Connell and James March stayed the night before they jumped off the roof back in the nineteen-"
"Balcony, they jumped off the balcony," Emily corrects from behind the camera, and Ben grimaces before re-doing the take automatically.
"Shit, sorry. This is reportedly where Patrick O'Connell and James March stayed the night before they jumped off the balcony back in the nineteen-twenties," he crosses the threshold but doesn't turn on the lights, of course. "As the story goes, the men's families found out about their relationship and didn't take it well, given the time period."
"So people have always been shitty, is what we're learning," Sammy quips before following Ben into the room.
As soon as he passes through the doorway, a strange, cold feeling overtakes Sammy. The sense of wrong is nearly overwhelming, and he feels sick to his stomach for a moment as the room spins around him. He has to steady himself against the wall quickly, which neither Ben nor the camera misses.
"Dude, you okay?"
"I'm fine. Just got dizzy for a second," the feeling passes as quickly as it came on, and he straightens up while trying to ignore the sense of foreboding which has settled deep in his chest. He doesn't know how he knows it, but they shouldn't be in here.
"That could be a sign of spiritual activity," Ben points out excitedly, and Sammy really wishes he wouldn't right now. "I've always said you're more sensitive than you-"
"Spiritual activity, low blood sugar, who's to say?" He catches Jack's eye and gives him a little nod, because he's on health and safety and is the one who'll get into trouble if one of them faints and hits their head or something. Both he and Emily look concerned, but they're on a schedule here and Sammy's not going to hold them up. "Let's just get your noisy shriek box over with."
"It's not a- It's a highly scientific piece of equipment…" Sammy gives the camera a deadpan look when Ben starts the familiar rant, and that's enough to keep things moving. He still feels nauseous and panicky in here, but he figures they can just get this over with as fast as possible and get the hell out of there.
Which isn't what happens, of course, because the universe just loves to fuck with Sammy on a good day - and this already is shaping up to be a terrible, no good, very bad day indeed.
The spirit box turns up nothing (except what Sammy tries to convince Ben is part of someone's pizza order), so Emily has the bright idea of doing their isolation challenges in the room's walk-in closet instead. Sammy instinctively knows, from the second she says it, that the last thing in the world he should do is walk into that closet… but Ben is already gearing up to shut himself in and if Sammy says something, it'll only draw more attention to him being uncomfortable in here.
Jack puts a questioning hand on his arm, out of shot, and Sammy forces a smile before they start rolling again. The internet is already determined to find 'evidence' that he's not as straight as he says he is, he's not about to freak out in the gay death room to give people more ammunition.
He even keeps it together through his own five minutes of isolation, keeping up a sardonic, one-sided conversation with an imaginary ghost to make sure he stays on-brand. Sammy's pretty sure he does a decent job of maintaining the front that he's not scared, even as fear creeps through his mind like tar and his eyes make up moving shapes in the dark.
It's all okay… until he can't open the door when Ben calls time.
"Ben," he tries the handle again, but the door is definitely locked. If this is Ben's doing, he's going to kick his tiny little ass from here to Ohio and back again. "Ben, this isn't funny. Open the door."
"It's not locked, dude," Ben rattles the handle from the other side, and Sammy feels the unease in his chest crystallise into panic. He knew he shouldn't have come in here. He usually requires facts before he makes decisions, but this is one fucking time he wishes he would have listened to his instincts.
"What's wrong?" Emily sounds concerned, as a harder rattle at the door tells Sammy that Jack has got involved. If he can't open the door, as the strongest of their little team, then they're fucked.
"Sammy's stuck in the closet."
"Well… that's ironic."
"Ben."
"Isn't he claustrophobic?"
"Sammy, are you sure it isn't… No, it's a key lock. Fuck, how is it stuck?"
"The comments section is gonna have a field day with this."
"Ben!"
Sammy sinks down the door to sit on the floor with a groan. Shit. Why couldn't he have just settled for a career in radio?