Fic: Unfinished Business (Supernatural)
Sep. 29th, 2006 01:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
apocalypsosTitle: Unfinished Business
Author: Troll Princess
Fandom: Supernatural
Rating: PG
Word Count: 1,000 words, give or take
Pairing: None
Spoilers: "In My Time of Dying"
Warnings: Character death
Disclaimer: This is not my toybox.
Summary: AU following "In My Time of Dying", in which things go very, very wrong. Okay, even more wrong.
Author's note: This is the fic I would have written last night post-episode if I'd been home to write it. It's not exactly the happiest AU on the planet, but then again, I'm in that kind of a mood.
*****
Unfinished Business
*****
They always tell the new nurses which room is his, that they're bound to see him wandering the halls if they just squint.
There's the official meeting when you join up at the hospital, a stupid little meet-and-greet and a boring tour that would put a person to sleep if it weren't for all the walking, and then there's the unofficial meeting. Some doctor or bored janitor or cafeteria worker leans towards you in the elevator or over the top of the nurses' station and says, "Hey, have you seen the ghost yet?"
And most people smile and shake their head, because of course there's no such thing as ghosts.
They say that for a while, until their drinks tip over like someone's smacked them to the side, until the radio at their desk suddenly changes to the classic rock station with a hiss of static. They say that until they see pen marks all over the obituaries of their morning paper, random words circled in their absense. They say that until they hear about the babies in the nursery being moved, about the newborn boys who've been found tucked against their mothers' sides when no one's watching.
They say that until they see the man wandering the halls in the night, the one who gets more agitated the closer it gets to the day the stranger visits.
And by then it's usually the skeptics who are leaning closer to new employees at the hospital and saying, "Hey, have you seen the ghost yet?"
*
He comes once a year like clockwork, the same day every year, the same time of day. He nods at everyone he passes and sits outside the doorway of one of the rooms, or inside it if they haven't assigned any patients to the bed. It's gotten to the point where they'll avoid posting a patient there if they can, if only to give him his privacy, if only because the ghost's mischief dies down for a while after he appears.
He's polite, he's old, he's still mourning. People leave him be.
They know what they've seen and heard in passing, though. They hear him talk about things, about nonsense, about his kids and his hunting, about fire, about demons, about killing things. Two of the nurses see him smile once, this brilliant wide all-encompassing grin that shows behind his eyes and looks like it misses that connection. A janitor hears him laugh at a joke no one told. One of the doctors swears he overhears him during rounds, voice choked with emotion as he apologizes to thin air for not having the fortitude to cremate.
It's odd, though, how the ghost calms down after that.
The ghost doesn't stop, of course. He never stops. He wants and wants and wants something, and nobody knows what to give him.
He drifts cold invisible fingertips over the arms and hands of the female staff. Their boyfriends and husbands finds itching powder in their clothes. All of the plastic spoons in the cafeteria go missing. The nurses sigh like the most put-upon people in the building and move happily gurgling infant boys back to the nursery, away from the snuggly nest they've wriggled into at their mother's side as both slept.
He doesn't hurt anybody, though, not really, but there's always that fear.
Always a suspicion.
*
This is the story that makes the rounds the most.
One of the girls in the cancer ward talks the nurses into a Halloween party once, all of her friends in the room and everybody in costume. "Monster Mash" plays on a cheap radio as the five of them giggle and crack jokes, pulling out a Ouija board intending to ask who's got a crush on Billy Camden or whether or not Carrie will get that wicked leather coat in the mall for her birthday.
The stylus goes wild as soon as they put it down on the board, spelling out sammy and reaper and run over and over again.
The girls pull their fingers away like they're touching hot steel, and the party's over.
Sasha dies the next day, but it's probably for the best.
Nobody mentions the Ouija board, and nobody tells the girls about the ghost.
*
They don't expect the stranger to come to them at the end, for him to do anything other than go into that room at his usual time and share apologies, crack a few bad jokes, smile and tease and cry.
They don't expect one of the nurses to find him there one day. He sits peacefully in the chair propped up like he's simply fallen asleep. There's a gentle smile on his face, the faintest tug upwards at the corners of his wide mouth, and it doesn't even go away when they start compressions, when they try their damndest to get his heart restarted.
He continues to smile softly, like a greeting or a whisper, as they roll him towards the morgue.
The babies stay where they are after that day.
Nobody will admit that they miss the ghost when they're not getting flirted with by invisible hands or having their newpapers marked up with pens, but that doesn't mean they don't.
Author: Troll Princess
Fandom: Supernatural
Rating: PG
Word Count: 1,000 words, give or take
Pairing: None
Spoilers: "In My Time of Dying"
Warnings: Character death
Disclaimer: This is not my toybox.
Summary: AU following "In My Time of Dying", in which things go very, very wrong. Okay, even more wrong.
Author's note: This is the fic I would have written last night post-episode if I'd been home to write it. It's not exactly the happiest AU on the planet, but then again, I'm in that kind of a mood.
Unfinished Business
*****
They always tell the new nurses which room is his, that they're bound to see him wandering the halls if they just squint.
There's the official meeting when you join up at the hospital, a stupid little meet-and-greet and a boring tour that would put a person to sleep if it weren't for all the walking, and then there's the unofficial meeting. Some doctor or bored janitor or cafeteria worker leans towards you in the elevator or over the top of the nurses' station and says, "Hey, have you seen the ghost yet?"
And most people smile and shake their head, because of course there's no such thing as ghosts.
They say that for a while, until their drinks tip over like someone's smacked them to the side, until the radio at their desk suddenly changes to the classic rock station with a hiss of static. They say that until they see pen marks all over the obituaries of their morning paper, random words circled in their absense. They say that until they hear about the babies in the nursery being moved, about the newborn boys who've been found tucked against their mothers' sides when no one's watching.
They say that until they see the man wandering the halls in the night, the one who gets more agitated the closer it gets to the day the stranger visits.
And by then it's usually the skeptics who are leaning closer to new employees at the hospital and saying, "Hey, have you seen the ghost yet?"
He comes once a year like clockwork, the same day every year, the same time of day. He nods at everyone he passes and sits outside the doorway of one of the rooms, or inside it if they haven't assigned any patients to the bed. It's gotten to the point where they'll avoid posting a patient there if they can, if only to give him his privacy, if only because the ghost's mischief dies down for a while after he appears.
He's polite, he's old, he's still mourning. People leave him be.
They know what they've seen and heard in passing, though. They hear him talk about things, about nonsense, about his kids and his hunting, about fire, about demons, about killing things. Two of the nurses see him smile once, this brilliant wide all-encompassing grin that shows behind his eyes and looks like it misses that connection. A janitor hears him laugh at a joke no one told. One of the doctors swears he overhears him during rounds, voice choked with emotion as he apologizes to thin air for not having the fortitude to cremate.
It's odd, though, how the ghost calms down after that.
The ghost doesn't stop, of course. He never stops. He wants and wants and wants something, and nobody knows what to give him.
He drifts cold invisible fingertips over the arms and hands of the female staff. Their boyfriends and husbands finds itching powder in their clothes. All of the plastic spoons in the cafeteria go missing. The nurses sigh like the most put-upon people in the building and move happily gurgling infant boys back to the nursery, away from the snuggly nest they've wriggled into at their mother's side as both slept.
He doesn't hurt anybody, though, not really, but there's always that fear.
Always a suspicion.
This is the story that makes the rounds the most.
One of the girls in the cancer ward talks the nurses into a Halloween party once, all of her friends in the room and everybody in costume. "Monster Mash" plays on a cheap radio as the five of them giggle and crack jokes, pulling out a Ouija board intending to ask who's got a crush on Billy Camden or whether or not Carrie will get that wicked leather coat in the mall for her birthday.
The stylus goes wild as soon as they put it down on the board, spelling out sammy and reaper and run over and over again.
The girls pull their fingers away like they're touching hot steel, and the party's over.
Sasha dies the next day, but it's probably for the best.
Nobody mentions the Ouija board, and nobody tells the girls about the ghost.
They don't expect the stranger to come to them at the end, for him to do anything other than go into that room at his usual time and share apologies, crack a few bad jokes, smile and tease and cry.
They don't expect one of the nurses to find him there one day. He sits peacefully in the chair propped up like he's simply fallen asleep. There's a gentle smile on his face, the faintest tug upwards at the corners of his wide mouth, and it doesn't even go away when they start compressions, when they try their damndest to get his heart restarted.
He continues to smile softly, like a greeting or a whisper, as they roll him towards the morgue.
The babies stay where they are after that day.
Nobody will admit that they miss the ghost when they're not getting flirted with by invisible hands or having their newpapers marked up with pens, but that doesn't mean they don't.
