No excuses for my absence:
Nada

An OC future fic:

Drive by fic

Throw it out there.

Oh...it's a mild crossover with Supernatural.
Sam and Dean hunt supernatural things.  They are prominent in this story...until...they are not.

Dust

by muchtvs


There’s a ghost in the Berkeley house.

Ryan’s convinced of it.

He’s convinced…mostly because…he’s seen it himself, sitting in an unfolded,  flimsy fold-up chair in the darkest corner of the laundry room, by the washing machine and dryer.

It was eating a ham sandwich.

######################

“I’m sorry….what?” asks Seth that night from Rhode Island….all sarcastic and stuttering.  “Ham?" I’m sorry…you’d think after being dead, it’d be eating a steak or something. Maybe veal.”

“This is serious,” Ryan whispers into his cell phone,  looking around him to make sure no one is overhearing the conversation. “I saw it.”

“It was probably just dust or something.”

“Dust?  Seth. It smiled at me.”

There’s silence and Ryan waits for …more sarcasm…and yep…here it is.

Seth never disappoints.

“People see Jesus in clumps of dust or cookies, buddy. How far of a stretch is it for you to see a ghost?”

######################

“I can’t get the damn light in the laundry room to quit flickering,” Sandy says a few days later, sipping coffee as he sits at the breakfast bar, flipping through the morning paper. “It’s driving me crazy.”

“Call an electrician,” Kirsten advising him over the sink.

Duh!

“Yeah,” Sandy shakes his head, cringes. “I hate being held hostage by service windows. If they would just commit to an actual hour, rather than somewhere between 5:00 a.m. and midnight.”

Ryan shoves cereal in his mouth and tries to look inconspicuous but it’s no use.

He’s the logical step in-between Sandy’s attempts at fixing the light and an actual paid electrician.

“Would you mind taking a look at it, Kid?” Sandy asks, handing Ryan the sports page.

Ryan scratches the nape of his neck.

Hell no he doesn’t want to take a look at the laundry room lighting.

He’s been avoiding the laundry room since the whole pile-of-dust –eating-an –imaginary-ham-sandwich thing.

When he looks up, Kirsten’s got her hand on her hip studying him with concern.

“Are you feeling alright? You look a little pale.”

Ryan sniffs once and twitches a smile, a little habit he’s picked up when he’s trying to convince himself, yeah, I’m good.

“What?” he asks fast. “No, yeah, yeah, yeah. I’m good. No problem. “

Sandy pats him on the back once and steals half of Ryan’s uneaten bagel.

#################################

“You’re not going to be able to fix it,” the ghost tells him, staring up at the ceiling as he watches Ryan on the step ladder ,unscrewing the white glass dome that conceals the light bulb.

“You’re not real,” Ryan says to himself as he speeds up the unscrewing. “Not here.”

“Son, I’m afraid the light bulb isn’t working correctly because of me.”

The ghost sounds genuinely apologetic and sorry. “It’s an unfortunate side effect of... my presence.”

Ryan blinks and stares at the flickering light and stares and blinks.

Then he removes the light bulb altogether and shakes it and sure enough, it’s perfectly fine.

“I really am sorry,” the ghost reiterates as Ryan replaces everything he’s just removed. “Please convey my apologies to the Mrs. of the house.”

Ryan does no such thing.

“It must be the wiring,” he tells Sandy.

###############################

Kirsten does the laundry.

Everyone’s.

Even Ryan’s, although he makes a half hearted attempt every now and then to tell her she doesn’t have to.

But she always assures him she doesn’t mind and she’s already doing multiple loads anyway, so, just throw his in with the rest of the family’s.

Ryan doesn’t care.

Kirsten’s been washing his stuff for nine years now.

There’s a little guilt, cause, he’s a twenty-three year old man living again at home with his mom doing his laundry.

But not enough guilt to actually do anything about it.

So, because Kirsten does the laundry, Ryan doesn’t have to interact with the ‘talking dust apparition’ until….

Sophie.

 

#############################

“What are you doing?” Kirsten asks her daughter, amused as Sophie struggles to hoist a full loaf of bread onto the kitchen counter.

Sophie drags a chair over and climbs up onto it. She reaches for a butter knife and squirts mustard onto the bread.

“Makin’ a sandwich,” she tells her mother.

“You just had lunch,” Kirsten reminds her. “You didn’t even finish it. Why are you making a sandwich?”

Sophie reaches for the paper thin white bag of deli-sliced pastrami and flops three pieces of the meat onto the open sandwich bread.

“For the man.”

Kirsten’s confused now and her antenna is up because her daughter is talking about an unknown person. A stranger.

“What man, honey?”

“The man in the laundry room.”

Ryan’s head pops up and he stands quickly, abandoning his project spread out on the dining room table.

“Sophie,” Kirsten says. “Honey, there’s no man in the laundry room.”

“Yes there is,” she answers confidently. “And he said, ‘please,’ so I’m getting him a sandwich.”

Ryan smiles and shakes his head and he hopes he’s coming off as placating and not terrified as he winks at Kirsten and says to Sophie, “The man in the laundry room. I know him. Let’s go give him the sandwich together.”

Kirsten smiles back and mouths, “Thank you.”

Translation:  ‘Thanks for humoring her, Ryan.’

###########################

“Here you go,” Sophie tells the ghost in the unfolded, folded chair, as she hands him the sandwich.

Ryan watches in amazement as the ghost smiles and bows his head and answers, “Why thank you little lady. Aren’t you just the best little hostess in the world.”

Then he reaches out and physically takes the plate out of Sophie’s hand, which seems impossible since his body is flickering in and out at almost the same tenuous rate as the light bulb is oscillating.

“What’s your name?” Sophie asks.

“Philip,” the ghost tells her, taking a huge bite out of the sandwich. “Philip. It’s so nice to meet you…Sophie. That is…Correct?”

Sophie nods and tells him, “This is my brother, Ryan. He’s an adult, so I don’t think he can see you.”

“Oh contrary, Sophie, your brother and I have met.”

The ghost holds out his free hand for Ryan to shake it.

##########################

“Sophie’s talking to the ghost,” Ryan tells Seth, hand cupped over the cell phone, head swiveling around in paranoia. “Do you still think its dust?” he hisses.

“Ummmm,” And now Seth sounds a bit more hesitant and a whole lot less sarcastic.

“She’s bringing him fucking pastrami sandwiches.”

“I thought he only liked ham,” Seth questions. It’s the first solid words he said since, “Ummmmm.”

“WE’RE OUT OF HAM!” Ryan shouts into the phone.

“Well, I suppose pastrami is Ham’s sister meat,” Seth verbally shrugs and Ryan is out of patience.

“Are you hearing what I am saying? There’s a ghost in the house and your five year old sister is bringing him sandwiches.”

“Are you positively sure it’s not dust?” Seth asks and Ryan wants to strangle him.

“He reads to her every night. She brings a book into the laundry room and repeats everything he says because he’s teaching her how to read Gone with the Wind, Seth. Your goddamn dust ball is sounding out words. Kirsten and Sandy are convinced Sophie’s gifted.”

Seth, for once, has no pithy comeback and Ryan hangs up on him, but not before saying, “You know what? Just forget it. I’ll take care of it myself.”

#####################

Turns out?

He doesn’t have to.

Two guys in city maintenance uniforms knock on the door in the middle of the afternoon and Ryan just happens to be at home.

“We’re here inspecting homes for faulty wiring,” the shorter guy says.

His uniform has the blue stitch name of, “Steve.”

The taller one, “Neal,” elaborates, explaining, “All these houses from the fifties are reporting the same problem.”

“Why would that be a city issue?” Ryan asks….not at all believing… because it’s not at all believable.

“Because…” the shorter one says unconvincingly …“It just is.”

All three men stare at each other.

Thirty seconds.

Staring.

Then…

“Look. No bullshit. Are your lights flickering in just one room?” the taller one suddenly asks. “You can’t figure out what’s going on. Something seems….wrong.”

Ryan blinks and stares.

And blinks.

He says all in one fast, fast, fast breath, “There’s a ghost in the laundry room that likes ham sandwiches.”

“Yeah,” the short one nods. “That’s pretty much why we’re here.”

####################

They have a black handheld thing they call an EMF reader and it’s screaming static.

 Ryan straggles behind Steve and Neal, listening into the conversation as they cover every square inch of the laundry room.

Is it a poltergeist?  

Is it doing mischievous, bordering on dangerous, pranks?

Nope, Ryan tells them.

Is it a deceased family member?

Not Caleb. Nope.

Does it attempt bodily harm? What does it look like? How does it manifest itself? Does it resemble anyone he has ever seen?

Does it look human?

“It’s right there,” Ryan says, pointing in front of the washer. “He’s separating the darks from the whites.”

The taller one swings the black EMF  thing in the direction Ryan is pointing and it goes crazy.

Looney Tunes with frantic noise.

“Holy Shit,” says Steve, before closing the door, effectively shutting Ryan out of the room.

##########################

Kirsten is still running errands when Sophie is dropped off from kindergarten and Neal and Steve are still locked in the laundry room, cussing up a storm, so Ryan has to hold his hands over Sophie’s ears while she eats a sliced apple lathered with peanut butter.

“Are those men going to hurt Philip?” Sophie asks. “Because that would be mean.”

“No,” Ryan assures her, “They’re only here to fix the light.”

The laundry room door swings open and…

“That is one stubborn motherfucker!” Steve shouts, stomping his way into the kitchen. “I freaking HATE ghosts.”

He notices Sophie and goes quiet, coming to a sudden halt, causing the other guy, Neal, to run smack dab into him.

“We’re sorry about the language,” Neal tells Ryan and Steve holds his hands out in a balanced Lady Justice style shrug.

“Philip doesn’t like mean people,” Sophie pouts though a bite of apple.

“Whatever,” Steve mutters.

 

############################

“The thing is,” Neal tells Ryan, “My name isn’t Neal. It’s Sam. Steve isn’t Steve. He’s my brother, Dean.”

Ryan doesn’t care what their names are.

He just wants the ham eating ghost gone.

“Why is it here?” he asks. “Can you guys get rid of it?”

“See…that’s the suck,” Steve…no…Dean, says.  

“He’s got a Get out of Jail Free card.”

That makes no sense to Ryan….”What?”

“We’ve never run into this before,” Sam tells him. “The ghost has …has….papers. To temporarily get out of …wherever he came from”

“Papers?” echoes Ryan. “Like a visa?”

“Papers,” confirms Sam.

“Motherfucking papers,” adds Dean. “I fucking hate ghosts.”

################################

The rub is, Philip is cleared to be in the laundry room. The powers upstairs know he is downstairs and his presence is sanctioned….something that a few of the old hunters in Sam and Dean’s profession have claimed to have run into, but something neither one of them ever have.

“God said he can be here?” Ryan asks, that blank stare consuming his face because just when things couldn’t get any weirder…

“Not God,” Dean tells him. “Well, maybe God. That’s Sam’s territory. I just kill things.”

Sam says that Philip has promised to leave once Ryan sits down and talks to him.

“Why me?”  Ryan asks because of all people?  Sandy maybe, he’s contributed to society. Maybe had a few clients that died or killed people.

 Him?

“Why me?”

“We don’t know,” Sam says. “But I don’t think there’s any reason to believe he would ever hurt you.”

#########################

Famous last words.

Philip thought Ryan came into the laundry room after his talk with Sam and Dean because Ryan finally understood that it was safe, but Ryan wasn’t ready for the ghost to throw himself into a full on hug and he backpedaled and fell over a three gallon jug of Tide and broke his wrist in the fall.

Crack.

Clean break.

Just a quick cast…after a tenuous jeep drive and excruciating pain.

And surgery because the break after all?

Not really all that clean.

Ryan is high on morphine and why the hell not talk calmly to the ghost sitting next to his bed?

There’s a concussion too, because the laundry room floor is cement. Not so much carpet or actually…not so soft in any way at all.

Yeah.

So the nurse just smiles at the concussed patient and adjusts the drip and ignores the fact that the guy lying in the hospital bed is asking the thin air next to him, “Why are you here?”

“I had a daughter once,” Philip tells Ryan. “She looked like your Sophie.”

“Okay,” Ryan sighs, closes his eyes and turns his head away. “Why are you here?”

“Beautiful little girl. Blonde hair, big eyes. Her favorite doll was Dressy Betsy and she used to meet me at the door and show me how well she had tied the doll’s shoes.”

“Okay,” Ryan says.

“But I was always so busy with work. I was never home….”

“Why are you here?” asks Ryan.

When he opens his eyes, Sandy is standing there.

And Philip is gone.

############################

Ryan is going home as soon as the doctor signs the release.

It’ll be a few hours, Kirsten informs him.

He overhears a nurse say that the concussion is a little more severe than they at first thought it was and that Ryan isn’t exactly responding …coherently.

He’s talking to thin air and that’s not really a good sign.

Kirsten comes back in the room, holding Sophie’s hand, and telling Ryan that now “they” are saying he has to stay another night.

###########################

It’s pitch black in the hospital room except for the pulse and heart rate monitor screen.

Philip’s face glows eerily in the shadows of the machinery.

Sandy and Kirsten went home because Ryan told them to and he already feels stupid enough about breaking his wrist…tripping over a plastic jug of laundry detergent.

What he really doesn’t need is the guilt of them pulling a second all-nighter.

So they go home and Ryan is alone with his shadows.

“Why do you still live at home?” Philip asks.

“I moved back in,” Ryan vaguely explains. “After college. It’s just…my girlfriend lives in Paris. It seemed stupid to get a house without her.”

“You wanted to live with them one last time,” Philip nods leadingly. “It’s understandable.”

There’s a manly silence.

Men don’t acknowledge some things.

Ryan doesn’t expound.

Philip respects that.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

“I had a daughter,” Philip tells Ryan. “Are you hearing me, Son?”

It’s early.

Two in the morning.

Ryan woke up ten minutes ago, the drugs wearing off and the concussion rallying.

He rubs at his temples and listens to the ghost.

“She looked just like her mother. Just like your Sophie. So sweet.”

“Why are you here?” asks Ryan.

If Philip did have an answer, Ryan doesn’t stay awake long enough to hear it.

##############################

At four, right before the birds start their chirping, Philip tells Ryan to wake up.

He’s all over Ryan, hovering, floating, then back in the chair.

“I have to go. I need you to listen. Are you awake, Ryan?”

“Yes,” Ryan says, his hair frictioning against the pillow case, the short ends standing at attention.

He’s awake.

Groggy but with it.

“I have two things to tell you.”

Ryan already knows one of the things.

“You had a daughter.

 “Yes,” Philip nods.

“What else?” Ryan asks. “Why are you here?”

“She’s all right,” Philip tells him and Ryan opens his eyes just a little.

“Your daughter?”

“No,” Philip shakes his head. “Your girl, she’s alright. She said to tell you that.”

Ryan blinks and stares a bit.

Then he knows.

“Marissa?” he asks and Philip says, “Yes,” and neither one of them talks for a few minutes, because guys don’t do that.

They don’t talk about why Ryan has to turn his head and be quiet for a little while.

##################

“I had a daughter,” Philip tells Ryan.

The birds are doing their annoying vocal best to slice through Ryan’s closed window, but it’s still dark and no one has been in Ryan’s room for hours.

“I know.”

“She was beautiful and loving but I worked too much and by the time I had time… to pay attention to her… she was gone. And then..then I died.”

“Why are you here?” Ryan asks.

“Her name was Dawn,” Philip says. "And I should have been a better father. Then maybe she would have been a better mother."

Then silence.

And Ryan stares.

####################

“He was sorry for something,” Ryan tells Sam and Dean.

Dean knows that’s a bullshit answer but Sam can sense it’s good enough and he doesn’t push for an actual explanation.

The laundry room is clean of EMF and that’s...evidently…a satisfactory reason for the brothers to disappear from wherever the hell they came from.

####################

“Where did Philip go?” Sophie asks, standing at the laundry room door, holding a plate full of ham sandwiches.

“Who?” Kirsten asks.

“I’ve got this, “ Ryan tells Kirsten, his wrist in a cast.

He’s fully mobile.

############################

It’s been a week.

“Will he be okay?” Sophie asks through tears, realizing no one is going to reappear.

“Who’s gonna feed him? He needed us.”

“He’s fine,” Ryan assures her. “He was only visiting. He has people he lives with. They’ll take care of him.”

“Do you promise?” Sophie asks.

She has her arms around his neck.

Ryan listens to her.

All her concerns and tears and questions, “Will he be okay?”

Sophie is the here and now and maybe someday…

Maybe someday he has a daughter …

Maybe someday he has a son…

Ryan listens and he understands why Philip came.

Why Philip came to apologize.

 “I promise,” he tells Sophie. “I promise he’ll be okay.”

Ryan  listened.

He understands why  there was a ghost eating a ham sandwich in the laundry room, sitting  in a corner patiently, in a house in the hills of  Berkeley.

“Don’t worry about it,” he tells Seth later.

Calm.

“You were right.”

It was nothing.

You were right.

You were right, Seth.

“It was dust.”

##############################

The End


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