It's moments like these, I wish I could sink into the ground, let the Earth swallow me up.

...

Fitton

Being drunk for a ghost was supposed to be technically impossible, for two main reasons. The first being that the person was dead, and therefore should not be able to drink a drop, the second being that if an intangible being such as a ghost did, in fact, try to drink, then all that should really happen is that the liquid would end up going right through them and hit the floor, much to their embarrassment and the annoyance of the cleaning staff of wherever they happened to be.

Martin, however, hardly conformed to the normal for ghostly behaviour. He was generally somewhat solid, which certainly helped with flying aeroplanes, and could actually eat and drink. The mechanics of this were somewhat similar to the idea of vanishing something. The matter can't simply cease to be, but it has nowhere to go. Therefore, it becomes, in essence, everything.

In Martin's case, the thing that is being vanished (here, the food, or rather at this instance, the alcohol) does not become nothing, but rather, becomes Martin.

Martin himself does not truly care about these details, but the fact that they affect him doesn't stop or go away. Like, for instance, how getting drunk happens so much faster. Due to the lack of blood.

It doesn't take long for him to realise that while getting drunk again could possibly be fun, it really, really shouldn't be right before a flight.

This is his third try at grabbing that coffee mug, and his hand is still going through it, and getting a slightly warm, buzzed feeling for his pains.

He tries again, and the hot liquid sploshes out of the mug when the mug moves an inch away from his hand.

Several minutes later, he's leaning on one of the seats, and his hand starts to sink through the fabric. At least this time he can pretend he simply slipped.

Some time after that and in the flight deck with Douglas and Arthur, he's glad Douglas is keeping his eyes in front of him, because he just gestured about something or other, and realised that he'd gone sort of see-through.

Yes, he thinks later, nursing the ghostly equivalent of a hangover, definitely not before a flight next time.

Preferably, not when people are around, either.

...

Helsinki

Kieran hadn't known what he'd been doing. Then again, neither had Martin, and that was even worse. Douglas, of course, was completely clueless for once, a fact that had caused him to be rather quiet for some time afterwards.

It had started when Kieran had begun to explain exactly what he thought of Martin, and Martin's 'life'. At first there was confusion. He'd been so interested and keen before, so why change his mind? What had changed? There must have been something, and it wasn't fair.

That was the first thought that stuck out in his mind, and the one that started off a sort of buzzing in his ears. It was low at first, quiet, but as he got angrier, the buzzing got louder.

He didn't realise that with every mean word the eleven year old boy was saying, the atmosphere in the closed café became more and more oppressive, with a tension you could cut through, and the temperature had dropped by one or two degrees.

If he had known, the very fact that he could do such things at all would probably have been enough of a shock to the system that the effects of his anger and embarrassment would have come to an abrupt end. But he didn't.

Stacked up cups began to rattle, but because they were somewhere near Arthur, no one paid them any attention, and besides, everyone who wasn't Martin or Kieran were currently focusing, with morbid curiosity, on Martin and Kieran. Little things like that weren't so important next to such a sight.

Then Kieran made it plan what he thought, and said outright that he didn't even think that Martin was a proper captain, and Martin snapped.

The lights flickered, and they put it down to faulty wiring.

It was only supposed to be a cuff around the ear – it certainly hadn't thrown him across the room, or even onto the floor, but from the look of surprise on Kieran's face it looked like he had caused a little more than a light sting.

It certainly wasn't anything that would hold Kieran back for long, though, as moments later the atmosphere of dread had turned into uneasiness for both of the pilots when Kieran smiled.

Martin was too busy realising what he'd just done and being both horrified and terrified that someone would put two and two together and understand, to move out of the way. It was a good thing the adrenaline rush hadn't yet passed, because if it had, the inattention might have caused Kieran's blows to fall on thin air.

As it was, Martin was finding that it was no fun at all being beaten up by an eleven year old child, especially when he knew damn well that he could just sink through the floor or disappear at will, but since Douglas was watching – and trying, yet failing, to perform damage control – and Arthur was right there, and Carolyn and the others were coming in, he couldn't, and had to just endure it.

There were, he decided, times like these when he hated his life, or death, or whatever you wanted to call it.

He wondered if Kieran would have been impressed even if he'd gone see-through. Probably not.

...

AN: I was originally going to do a whole load more moments from the series that were changed with Martin becoming a ghost. But then the second one took ages to get out of my head, and there may or may not be something planned for before Gdansk, I'm not sure. I might reschedule it, or I might not.

Interestingly, as the Helsinki short shows, if Martin didn't put all of his ghostly energies into being solid enough to fly a plane, he'd actually be pretty powerful. But flying a plane is what he wants, and what use would he have for ~ghostly powers~ anyway?