Chapter Text
Meg’s new house wasn’t anything special.
It wasn’t beautiful or big. It wasn’t old enough to be considered historical, but it wasn’t new enough to be considered truly new. The yard wasn’t big, the landscaping wasn’t nice, and the porch wasn’t exactly intact. The paint wasn’t exactly in good condition, having been weathered by the elements until it resembled old dirt, and the shutters weren’t the kind that closed over the window.
But it was hers. Finally, after years of slaving away as a nurse at the High School, squirreling away every penny she could, she had a place of her own. A place where she wouldn’t have to hear her upstairs neighbors fighting or his downstairs neighbor playing his crappy Bible music at three in the morning. The new house was close enough to the High School that she could walk to it on sunny days in the mornings, but far away enough that the kids probably wouldn’t bother her.
It would need some work, but other than that, it was perfect.
“You sure about this, sis?” her brother, Tom, asked as he slid up to her. He awkwardly shifted the box holding her plates around. “This place looks like someone died here.”
“Someone probably did,” Meg said dryly. “But a little paint, maybe some new stairs for the porch, and it should be fine.”
As if on cue, one of the shutters on the front window gave a groan and dropped off the house and into the overgrown bushes. Meg frowned as Tom shot her an I told you so look.
“The foundation, electric, and plumbing are solid,” Meg informed him. “The windows, too. The outside needs most of the work.”
“It’s so tiny, though.”
Meg fished into her pocket for her keys. “I like small. Besides, I don’t need a lot of room. Now c’mon.”
The key slipped into the lock easily. Meg smiled when she crossed the threshold and stood in the middle of her new house. She led Tom down the small hallway that eventually spilled into the kitchen and living room and gestured in a circle, beaming.
Tom raised his eyebrows and set his box down on the counter. “Meg, this place is a shithole.”
Meg rolled her eyes. “No, it’s not. It’s quaint.”
“It’s a shithole,” Tom repeated. “There’s a goddamned rug. In the kitchen!”
Meg shrugged. True, the kitchen, which was separated from the living room by only small breakfast bar, had an ugly red rug on the floor instead of tile or linoleum. The rug continued into the living room and small dining room. The walls were an ugly shade of gray throughout the house.
“The rug can be ripped up.”
“Who knows what you’ll find under there? Meg, I can’t believe you bought this piece of crap!”
“I bought it because I like it,” Meg snapped. “It has potential.”
“You and dad watch far too much HGTV.”
Meg huffed and stomped toward the door. “Whatever. Help me get the rest of my shit outta the moving van.”
.
Later that night, Meg tucked herself into bed in her not quite old, but not quite brand new house, and smiled to herself. School was over, and she had the whole summer to fix the place up to her liking. Tom would help her, if she pestered him enough. It would take a chunk of her savings and a lot of work, but she could do it.
Drifting off, she failed to notice that she had left her bedside lamp on. Once she was asleep, it flickered off by itself.
.
Standing in the middle of the living room, Castiel adjusted his tie and sighed.
The house had sat abandoned for months before showings started, but once again it seemed he had a roommate. The young woman who had shown up seemed nice enough, he supposed, but he hoped she wasn’t planning on changing too much. He liked his house the way it was.
Although, he had to admit that her furniture, what little she had, was pretty nice. And her television was far nicer than any of the TVs he had owned in life, or any of the TVs that the home’s previous two owners had brought with them.
But, he figured, as long as she was quiet and didn’t make too much of a mess, and didn’t go digging into the home’s history, they would get along just fine.
Raising his hand to his head, Castiel fingered the jagged flesh of his forehead.
He had been murdered in his own home nearly ten years prior, two days shy of his twenty-eighth birthday. He’d been ready to slip out the door to go to his sister’s wedding when he’d realized that his tie was on backward and the man had appeared, coming from the living room.
Castiel had never seen the man’s face, only his own expression in the hall mirror as he heard the click of the gun and felt cold metal being pressed against the back of his head. Then there had only been red.
When he’d woken several hours later, the mirror was cracked and painted with blood, there was crime scene tape across his door, and his body was nowhere to be found. He’d promptly tried to walk out the door and found himself in the living room, blinking in confusion.
It had only taken him a few hours to accept that he was a ghost.
As far as Castiel knew, the man who had murdered him had never been caught. The paper boy continued to deliver newspapers for a few weeks after Castiel’s death, but they were too far outside of the house for him to reach. By the time his house had been cleaned and sold, the story of his murder had died down, and there wasn’t anything in the newspapers about it.
The first couple who had bought the house had lived there for six years. They were elderly, quiet, and liked to have their grandchildren visit. But then the wife had fallen sick and died in the hospital, and the husband had moved in with his daughter, and the house had been put back on the market, much to Castiel’s disappointment. He’d liked the old couple, and had been hoping that, when they died, they did it at home so he would have some company.
The next owners of the house had been far too noisy for his liking. They were young, drank long into the night, and blasted music that would’ve given him headaches if he still had a body. They were messy and broke things and didn’t take care of the house. He was relieved when the mother of one of the boys, who was paying for the rent on the house that the old man still owned, showed up and hauled them home.
Then Castiel had heard that the old man had died as well, and his son and daughters were planning on selling the house.
The new woman seemed nice, and he’d heard her talk about redecorating a bit. He hoped her sense of style wasn’t too eccentric.
But he’d already had to turn a lamp off for her.
He’d gotten used to doing that with the old couple. Both the husband and the wife had been a bit forgetful, so he’d found himself moving glasses onto coasters and turning off lights when they forgot to. It felt nice, to be useful.
Taking a last look around the living room, Castiel sighed and sank into one of the new chairs. With a flick of his eyes he turned the television on, made sure the volume was low, and settled in for another long night.
.
Castiel quickly decided that the new woman was insane.
He tried to stay out of the way of the living, hiding in the attic or hovering near televisions or radios to catch a glimpse of the outside world, but he was fascinated by his home’s new occupant.
She started work on the house on her very first morning there, spreading out old sheets and painting while the radio hummed in the background and she sang along to it. Her music choices were absurd, and her voice was horrible, but she didn’t seem to notice either of those things, happily screeching along with the radio.
Then he’d noticed the paint and had to fight the urge to scare her out of his home.
She’d painted his dining room electric green.
.
In the end, Meg loved her house.
It had taken a large chunk of change, but she’d gotten the carpets ripped up, and had been delighted to find hardwood under them. After some fixing up, they looked almost as good as new. Good enough that Meg liked them, anyway. She’d painted the outside of the house back to a lovely white, but had gone crazy on the inside, picking whatever colors caught her eye. The dining room was electric green, the kitchen and living room were a bright, hot pink, and her bedroom was a plumb color. She’d painted the spare bedroom bright yellow and had found a nice orange for the front hallway. The bathroom was the only room that she’d left gray.
Then she’d unpacked her knick knacks. The cow skull her father had given her for her seventeenth birthday went perfectly in the living room, just above her television. Her collection of decorative ashtrays went on shelves in the kitchen. Her collection of interesting pipes took up residence in her room.
Finally, finally done, Meg reclined in her chair and flicked the TV on, frowning when she saw how low the volume was. She could’ve sworn that she’d had it up high the day before when she went to bed.
Shrugging, Meg turned the volume up, cracked open her beer, and relaxed.
.
Castiel was pretty sure that insanity was the only way to explain his new roommate.
He learned that her name was Meg, that she liked classic rock, weird colors, and horror movies that made him think he could still feel nauseous despite his lack of a physical body. She drank too much beer, left the door open when she showered, sung in the shower, and was prone to leaving her clothes all over her bedroom floor and her wet towels there as well.
Her eating habits were a mystery to him. She ate far too much take out, and when she did cook at home, he couldn’t find one healthy thing in her dishes. She ate hot dogs and hamburgers and when he looked in the fridge he couldn’t fine one piece of fruit.
The woman was clearly insane, and he had no idea how she was still alive.
Beyond that, she was messy. He had never exactly been the cleanest person, but he had been organized. The closet where Meg stored her linens was a mess, the sheets and pillowcases thrown in without a care. The towels and washcloths hadn’t fared much better.
So, he wasn’t the cleanest person when he was alive. But he still faced all his folds the same way and picked his clothes up off the floor. And used coasters, which Meg was apparently incapable of doing.
After two months of living with her, Castiel opened the fridge and decided that things could not continue the way they were. Despite her eccentricities, Meg was a huge improvement over the college boys, and he wanted to keep her for a while.
Using his powers to float the beer out of the fridge, he made a plan.
.
Meg came home that day, stretched, and strolled into the kitchen for a beer before she set about making dinner. She had some microwaveable slop to heat up, but she was too tired to cook for herself, especially after spending all day preparing to go back to school. The meeting would’ve gone well, if not for Fergus Crowley, the slimy Latin teacher who always gave her creepy smiles. He had spent the entire meeting staring at her, insulting her under his breath, and generally making her uncomfortable.
She hated dealing with him. His family was weird, but had lived in town for generations, all of them piled into one house near the outskirts of town at an isolated little crossroads. They were a quiet and isolated bunch, but essentially harmless, if just slimy and weird. But now that she was home, she could have a couple of beers, relax, and not think about how she had to deal with him for another year.
She looked at the counter and frowned.
All but two of her beer cans were open, empty, rinsed out, and stacked neatly on the counter, ready to go into the recycling. When she opened her fridge, she saw that the bagged salad she’d bought the previous day sitting in front of everything else, along with a bottle of dressing and her apple juice.
Blinking, she shut the fridge and stepped back. “What the fuck. Did I sleep-organize my fridge again?”
She’d had a problem sleepwalking when she was younger, but she thought that it had been corrected. And she definitely wouldn’t have gotten rid of her beer. Or moved the bagged salad to the front of the fridge.
Pushing it out of the way, Meg reached for one of the last beers in the fridge and slammed the door shut. There had to be a reasonable explanation for things.
.
Over the next few weeks, Meg began to think that Tom was right when he said the house was a shithole.
There had to be drafts somewhere, because every time she showered, the bathroom door swung shut on its own. Despite the fact that she had be assured that the electricity was solid, the lights would sometimes flicker in the middle of the night while she watched a movie, and the volume of the television would spontaneously lower itself. The station on her radio would switch from the classic rock station to the Christian rock station, and something had to be blowing her curtains open in the mornings so the sunlight hit her just so in the face, waking her up far before she had to be up and ready for school. There were random spots of cold all over the house that lingered no matter how high she turned up the heat.
The towel from her shower would mysteriously hang itself back up when she was certain that she had left it on the floor. When she opened her linen closet to change her sheets, she found that they were neatly stacked and that all of the folds were facing the same way, when she was certain that she’d just thrown them in the closet and promised to sort them out later.
Something fishy was going on, and she was going to get to the bottom of it.
.
Castiel liked being helpful.
In truth, Meg’s messiness didn’t annoy him, because it gave him something to do all day while he was housebound. It felt good to straighten up like the house was still his. He had to close the door while she was showering, though. He supposed that quite a few people who lived alone left their doors open while they were in the bathroom, but he had no urge to intrude on her privacy, even if he was a ghost. He straightened her linens, moved her cups onto coasters when she wasn’t looking, and opened her curtains in the morning to make sure that she was up and ready on time.
He did discover, however, that he wasn’t as in control of his powers as he thought. Horror movies still got the best of him from time to time, particularly the bloody ones that his roommate favored. When he was frightened, he would lose control of his powers and set the light flickering, or the volume on the television would plummet. Meg seemed to notice, too. He caught her walking through the house carefully, glancing over her shoulder and double-checking that her lights were off or her curtains were closed at night. He was careful to keep himself hidden, trying to keep his powers under control. He knew that he could appear to people, if he really wanted, but he was embarrassed by his appearance, and did not wish to scare her.
.
Meg knew something fishy was going on, and she’d had enough of it.
“What do you think, Pamela?” she asked her friend as she led her into the house. “Feel anything?”
Pamela, the pretty, young Home Ec teacher who always claimed she was physic and that the school was haunted by the ghost of an old janitor, tilted her head to the side and set her hand on the wall. “Huh.”
“Was that a good huh or a bad huh?”
“Just a huh,” Pamela answered. She tossed her dark hair over her shoulder and strode further into the home. “Well, something definitely feels off here. Specifically by the wall.”
Meg frowned. “Well, nothing’s happened, so.”
“You do know that realtors don’t have to tell you everything that happened in the house, right?” Pamela asked. “Did you do any of your own research on who might have died in the house, or anything? Because it feels really, really weird in here.”
“I didn’t look anything up. I just got the plumbing and electricity and foundation and shit checked. Who cares if someone died here?”
“Well, if someone died here, that means that they’re probably the one haunting you,” Pamela explained. “Honestly, Meg.”
“Well, if there is someone here, they haven’t done anything bad. Just annoying.”
“Annoying?”
“Like throwing out my beer and straightening my sheets. I don’t even know why I invited you here. There’s no such thing as ghosts. This is stupid.”
“It’s not stupid,” Pamela insisted. “It’s caution. It might be harmless stuff now, but it could progress into something worse in the future. Ghosts will sometimes start off doing mundane things to test the water, and then do things that are worse and worse when you ignore them. You could wake up one day with scratches and bruises and not know where they came from.”
The front door flew open on its own, banging angrily against the wall.
Pamela jumped. “Oops. I think I made it angry. I should probably go.”
“Wait, you’re saying my house is haunted?” Meg screeched as Pamela retreated. “Pamela! Come back here! Pamela!”
“I’ll see you at work on Monday!” Pamela called over her shoulder. “Meg, you’re a nice girl, but I’m not messing with this shit, not without more info!”
Meg stared through the open door as Pamela retreated to her car and sped off. A moment later, the door slowly shut. Meg glared at the wood and stomped her foot. Pamela didn’t return, and nothing else happened.
“Haunted my ass. She’s probably just trying to scare me,” Meg muttered. “Ghosts aren’t real. This is all a load of bullshit.”
She’d forgotten to buy more beer when she stopped at the store, so she poured herself a glass of lemonade instead. She took a sip, wrinkled her nose in distaste when the bitter flavor hit her tongue, and set the glass on the table while she turned to root through her cabinets for some sugar.
“You know,” said a gravely voice behind her. “Using a coaster would not kill you. I’m dead, so I would know.”
Meg jumped and whirled around, scattering the sugar all around her as she went. For a moment she thought she saw the form of a tall man with dark hair and blue eyes standing next to her table. He was dressed in a suit and tan trenchcoat. There was evidence of a bullet wound on his forehead.
His tie was on backward.
She blinked and the man was gone. But her drink lifted on its own. She watched as one of her coasters floated toward the table until it was under her drink. The glass gently settled on top of it.
A heartbeat passed. She felt her hands shake. The man did not return.
Meg screamed and bolted for the door, barely remembering to grab her cell phone and keys as she flew toward her car. She’d completely forgotten her shoes and purse, but she didn’t care. She jumped into her car and furiously dialed her friend Ruby’s number.
“Ruby. I need to borrow some shoes. And your laptop. And stay at your place tonight,” she rambled as soon as Ruby picked up. “I’ll tell you when I get there. Just. I can’t stay in the house tonight.”
Ruby grumbled, but told Meg to come over. The pedals were rough against her bare feet, and she had to control her breathing to make sure that she didn’t go over the speed limit. If she got pulled over with no shoes and license, the cops wouldn’t exactly believe that she was fleeing her own home because she’d seen a ghost. They’d probably haul her off to the mental ward and keep her there.
.
Castiel paced the living room.
He’d scared her.
It hadn’t been intentional. He’d lost his temper when her friend was there, when he should’ve known to control it better. He was ready to slink off to the attic after that, but then Meg had called him annoying.
When he was only trying to help her.
Walking into the kitchen, he sighed and floated her glass of lemonade toward the sink to pour it out. Condensation had gathered on the glass, and there was a wet spot on the coaster. A wet spot that, thanks to him, wouldn’t leave a ring.
He rinsed the glass out and deposited it in the drying rack before he summoned the broom and dustpan from the cupboard and set them to sweeping up the spilled sugar. Meg would have to come home eventually, and he didn’t want her to come back to sticky floors, especially when it was his fault that she’d spilled the sugar in the first place.
He’d have to apologize when she got home. He just wasn’t sure how.
He floated upstairs into the guest bedroom that she was using as her home office and poked around a bit. When he opened of the drawers, he saw printer paper and colored pens. Smiling, he called up memories of playing with his sisters as a child and set about making his apology.
.
Meg returned the following morning armed to the teeth.
She’d spent the night at Ruby’s apartment researching ghosts. She hadn’t had time to find any evidence on violent happenings in her house, but she had found a few ways to keep the ghost from coming near her until she could call the priest to get rid of it. Ruby had thankfully agreed to lend her a pair of flats while she went to the store.
Her new cross necklace was heavy around her neck, the bag of salt she was carrying made her arms ache, and the new iron fireplace poker was sharp and ready for action. All she had to do was use them.
Her Ouija board from Toys R Us made her feel a little foolish, but she figured it was her best bet at contacting the spirit in her house and getting him to leave on his own. She really, really didn’t want to call the priest or Pamela to get rid of it.
She carefully unlocked the house and stepped into the hall, holding the fireplace poker in front of her protectively. The door didn’t slam on its own, no lights flickered, and there were no strange noises in the house. She cautiously continued down the hallway, dropping the poker in shock when she walked into the kitchen.
It was spotlessly clean, with no evidence of the sugar she’d spilled or any of the other little crumbs that had been scattered around her toaster. The floor gleamed with fresh polish, and the dishes that she’d left in the sink were clean and set in the drying rack. There was a bouquet of carefully-folded paper roses resting on the middle of the table, each one colored with a different colored pen. Folded in front of them was a small piece of paper that simply said sorry in small, cramped handwriting.
She continued through the rest of the house. The beds in the upstairs rooms were neatly made, with the curtains pulled and tied back to let in the sun. The floors were freshly vacuumed. The bathroom was spotlessly clean and smelled like bleach. Every surface was freshly dusted.
She returned to the kitchen and carefully picked up one of the paper roses.
“Huh. So, looks like I’ve got a clean ghost.”
She unpacked the Ouija board, closed the curtains, and flicked the lights off. Lighting two of the candles that she’d packed for emergency blackouts, she settled them on either side of the board and gently placed two fingers on the planchette.
“You needn’t bother with those things,” the gravely voice from the night before interrupted. Her other chair pulled itself away from the table.
Meg pulled her hands into fists to stop them from shaking. “You’re a ghost?”
The planchette slid to the yes space at the same time the voice spoke. “I am. Oh, dear. I did not mean to do that.”
Meg swallowed hard. “Why can’t I see you? I saw you before.”
“That was an accident,” the voice said. “My appearance would be startling. I apologize for losing control like that.”
“Show me,” Meg demanded. “You did it before. Show me. I don’t like talking to nothing.” The planchette on the board slid to the no space. Meg jumped involuntarily.
“I apologize.”
“Can you tell me your name, at least?” she asked. The voice didn’t answer her. Instead, the planchette moved across the board, pausing on a few letters.
“Cas-t-iel,” she said slowly.
“Yes.”
“You got a last name?”
“No.”
“I can easily find out, you know. All I have to do is ask around and see who got murdered here.”
The flames on the candles blew out, plunging the room into darkness. The ghost sounded angry. “Who told you that?”
“I guessed,” she said dryly. She reached for her lighter when the ceiling lights flickered and then blazed bright.
“I told you, you needn’t bother with such silly things,” Castiel said. The candles moved away from her, hovered in the air for a moment, and then flew back into the designated cupboard. Meg stared with her mouth hanging open. “I am not a trickster. I will talk to you openly.”
“But not let me see what you look like?”
“As I said, my appearance is less than neat.”
“I highly doubt it could be worse than what happened before,” she pointed out. Meg heard a loud sigh and the lights flickered again. When they stopped, a man was sitting opposite her.
He had a square jaw covered with stubble and dark hair that was sticking up every which way, as if he’d just rolled out of bed or run his fingers through it. His eyes were a bright, clear blue. He was dressed formally, as if going to work or to a wedding, in a nice suit with a tan trench coat over it. The only thing that distracted from his appearance was the fact that his dark blue tie was on backward.
That, and the jagged hole in his forehead that was dark with blood.
Meg stared at it. “Huh. That the exit side?”
Castiel looked embarrassed. He held his hand to his head self-consciously. “Yes. The bullet entered from the back of my head. I’ve never seen what that side looks like.”
“It’s probably smaller,” she told him, struggling to find something else to say. She pinched herself, wincing when she felt the pain. It was really real, and not some dream. “You’ve been the one straightening the sheets and hanging up the towels and closing doors?”
“Yes.”
“You’ve been the one throwing out my beer?”
This time he didn’t look embarrassed. “You drink far too much of it. Some water would be healthier. Or juice. Have you ever even eaten a salad?”
Meg ignored him. “Are you the one making the water get cold? Or is there a plumbing issue?”
“You should shorten your showers. It saves water. Also, I read once that rinsing your hair with cold water before you exit the shower is good for it.”
“Well, knock it off. I like long showers and I like my beer,” she grumbled. “The lights flickering when I’m watching movies?”
“A few of them scare me. When I feel intense emotions, it is harder to control myself.”
“You’re dead. How can a horror movie scare you?”
He winced. It made lines appear in the corners of his eyes, but they only served to make him look more handsome. “Just because I am dead doesn’t mean that I don’t have emotions. Some of those films are terrifying.” He paused and lowered his eyes. “Do you really find my help annoying?”
“Sometimes,” she admitted. “Things moving on their own overnight and your beer pouring itself out isn’t exactly helpful.”
He winced. “I apologize.”
She reached over and grabbed the paper roses and apology card. “You did that already. Accepted.”
He nodded. “Are you going to sell the house now?”
“Do you want me to?” she asked seriously. “You’re not going to, like, scratch me up or throw my stuff at me to try to get me out, are you?”
He shook his head. “No. It is nice to have a roommate again. The last two people who stayed here weren’t clean, or quiet. The old couple before them was nice. They never noticed if I moved things around to help them find it easier or if things were moved around in their fridge.”
“Well, maybe lay off pouring my beer out and pulling the curtains open at unreasonable times of the day.”
“I do not want you to oversleep.”
“I have alarm clocks.”
“It is possible to sleep through an alarm clock,” he pointed out. “Besides, you should let some light in. It warms the house up.”
Meg snorted. “Fine. Is there anything you’d like me to do?”
“Please close your doors while showering or changing, and please refrain from walking about the house in a state of undress,” he requested.
She quirked an eyebrow. “What? Am I not pretty?”
Meg could’ve sworn she saw the ghost blush, but it was gone in a moment. “No,” he said. “It is just improper.”
She nodded. “Alright. Fine. How’s this even going to work, though? Us living together like this? And put your hand down. You look ridiculous.” Castiel slowly lowered his hand, his eyes trained on her face. Meg swallowed and looked straight into his eyes, avoiding the hole in his head. She gestured for him to speak.
“You could pretend this meeting never happened and just feign ignorance to the weird things that sometimes happen,” he suggested. “You could just ignore me when I do things, and if I do something that annoys you, you could just shout it out. I’ll hear you, wherever I am. I’m usually nearby. Meanwhile, I will stop throwing out your beer and I will remember to turn the volume of the television up before I retire for the night.”
“Do you even sleep?” she asked.
“Not exactly. It’s more like a trance. I have no need to sleep, or do any resting, but it passes the time. It’s more like…”
“When your computer is on screensaver mode?” she guessed.
“Similar, yes. That is the best way I can describe it.”
She nodded. “Okay. So, those are the terms?”
“I suppose. Pick the option you like.”
Meg shrugged. “Well, we could hang out occasionally, I guess. I don’t do much since I work a lot.”
“I’ll…see. I’m not really used to interacting with the people who share my home.”
“Well, in that case. I’m going to pack up this stupid board and make myself some lunch. And you’re not going to touch the heater no matter how high I put it up this winter,” she said.
Castiel smiled. “I think that reasonable.”
.
They fell into an uneasy pattern. She didn’t see Castiel again, but she knew when he was around because the air in the house suddenly felt colder. It hadn’t been a problem in the summer, because she’d had her air conditioning on, but now that fall was flying by and winter was settling in, she noticed it more and more. She took to wearing sweaters in the house, because the cold when he was around couldn’t be beaten by the heater. Castiel responded by pulling out her winter blankets from the attic while she was at work and setting them in strategic locations throughout the house.
Whenever she lost her keys, they reappeared on the table by the door. Her counters were freshly wiped down every day when she came home, even if she did it before she left. Any dishes that she left in the sink in the morning or at night were mysteriously done when she woke up or came home from work. Food that was about to expire was moved to the front of the fridge.
She discovered that her ghost really liked romantic comedies. Whenever one was on television, the lights flickered at the more emotional parts. Occasionally she found one of her DVDs left in the player, and her Netflix started suggesting more and more sappy things to her. Meg couldn’t remember granting her ghost permission to use her account, but she figured that he needed something to do at night, and set up a separate profile. From then on, weird suggestions stopped appearing in hers. Once, out of curiosity, she checked the profile she’d set up for him and found lots of nature documentaries and sappy, romantic movies.
She went to her brother’s house for Thanksgiving and lied through her teeth about the house being perfectly normal and how well she was settling in. Tom, in return, dumped their mother’s old sewing machine and a bunch of fabric on her. His ex-girlfriend had been a big sewer, but with her gone, he had no use for it. Meg wasn’t a sewer, either, but she lugged the stupid thing home anyway, because it had belonged to her mother. When she woke up the next morning, there were new, Christmas-patterned coasters stacked on her kitchen table, and next to them a handwritten note to please bring home patterns, material that matched the paint in the living room for new curtains, and to please use the new coasters.
She figured that her ghost enjoyed sewing and that he wanted to possibly add some personal touches to the house, so she complied with his request.
They had their own routine. It was perfectly fine, if a little unsettling, and she got used to it.
Until her father called and said that he wanted to stay with her over Christmas break.
Meg was overjoyed and told her father that she would be delighted to have him stay with her. She bounced with excitement for about a minute until she heard the sewing machine whirl to life in the other room and she remembered the little quirk about her house.
She walked into the living room and stared at the sewing machine. The chair was pulled back and the needle was moving faster than she thought was safe, but then, Castiel couldn’t put it through his fingers. She cleared her throat and waited for the machine to stop. Eventually, it did, and the chair turned to face her. Castiel didn’t make an appearance, but the room was cold, so she knew he was listening.
“My dad’s coming to stay over Christmas break,” she told the chair. “So, not to throw a wrench into our routine, but I didn’t tell him anything about the spooky shit, and he’s very superstitious. He’ll probably start burning sage everywhere and shit if he knows. So, like, no freaky stuff while he’s here, okay?”
Castiel didn’t answer, but the room was still cold. Meg stomped her foot. “Okay?”
The Ouija board opened on its own and set itself up on her table. The planchette moved to yes.
“You can talk to me, you know,” she said. “I did just watch the sewing machine move on its own. What are you making, anyway?”
She heard a loud sigh, and Castiel appeared in the chair. “Christmas is coming up. I thought it would be nice to have some festive things about the house. Do you have any knitting supplies?”
Meg blinked at him. He looked the same as he had the last time, expect this time he didn’t raise his hand to cover the bullet wound in his forehead. She took care not to stare at it, lest he vanish again. “No. I don’t have any knitting stuff. Do I look like I knit?”
“No, but you don’t look like you sew, either, and you have a sewing machine.”
“It was my mom’s. She died like ten years ago. Tom’s ex-girlfriend, Cecily, sewed a lot. But they broke up like two months ago and he doesn’t sew, so I got it.”
“I’m sorry about your mother.”
Meg waved her hand. “It’s okay. It happened a long time ago. Just promise me you won’t pull any weird stuff while my dad is here.”
He nodded. “I think I can hold off doing domestic chores for a week or so.”
She nodded back. “Good. I’m gonna go buy sheets for the guest bedroom.”
He stared at her. “There’s a blanket on that bed. Surely there are sheets?”
“No sheets, no pillowcases, and I’ve only the one blanket,” she told him.
“Meg, you’ve lived her for months.”
“I didn’t think dad was gonna drive four hours to sleep here overnight. He usually stays with Tom. But I need sheets.”
“While you’re out, could you perhaps grab some knitting needles and yarn? Size eight needles. Whatever colors you pick out would be fine.”
Meg sighed. “Sure. I’ll get your yarn. Need something to do while you watch TV?”
He nodded. “Yes, please. Thank you.”
Meg automatically reached for her keys when she reached the front door. They were in the same spot on the table, like they always were when Castiel got ahold of them.
.
Her father had a few more lines on his face, and he had lost a little more hair, but other than that he looked the same as the year before. His strange, yellow eyes sparkled with happiness when he looked at her, and his hug was firm. She excitedly showed him into the kitchen, offered him a beer, and demanded that he fill her in on all the hometown gossip. He teased, complimented her décor, and asked her why the heat was so damn low. Meg suggested her father put on another sweater, but went to turn the heat up, anyway. Her father strolled into the living room and lit a fire instead.
She grabbed a beer for herself and joined her father in the living room.
.
In Castiel’s opinion, Meg’s entire family was insane.
Her father complimented the electric green paint in the kitchen, and the pink paint in the living room. He liked Meg’s weird, red table in the kitchen and her skull-shaped salt and pepper shakers.
He also complimented Castiel’s curtains and the coasters, but Castiel ignored that.
Azazel Master’s drank just as much beer as his daughter, had terrible eating habits just like her, and also used far too much hot water. After only three days of having the man in the house, Castiel had finally learned where Meg had picked up most of her habits.
Castiel also learned that Azazel was just as messy as Meg had been when she first moved into the house. After he had appeared to her, Meg had become a bit more conscious about moving her glasses onto coasters and keeping the house straightened, for the most part. She still threw her towels and sheets into a haphazard pile in the closet, and she never hung up her towels or folded her laundry properly, but neither did Azazel.
Castiel tried to stay away from them. He tried to obey Meg’s request and act as though he wasn’t there. But he couldn’t help but pick up the towels in the bathroom and move Azazel’s drinks onto coasters when the man wasn’t looking.
On Christmas Eve, Meg’s brother, Tom, came over and he watched as the three of them swapped little presents in Meg’s living room. Christmas music played softly over the speakers, and the fire crackled in the background. Castiel stayed to the side, watching them quietly, trying not to let his emotions get the best of him as he perched next to Meg on the couch, careful not to touch her.
It was homey, and he missed it.
.
Meg woke up on Christmas morning to a carefully-wrapped package on the foot of her bed. Her room was warm, which meant that Castiel was hanging out somewhere else in the house. The package was nothing fancy, wrapped in newspaper and tied with some green ribbon she’d brought home to wrap her own gifts with, and there was no label on it.
She leaned down and grabbed the package. She settled it on her lap and unwound the ribbon, eyebrows wrinkled in confusion. She and her father and Tom had exchanged their little gifts the night before, and she couldn’t imagine who else would’ve bought her something. Peeling back the newspaper, Meg smiled when she saw the soft, knitted sweater nestled in the wrapping.
She only knew one person who knitted.
Meg sat up and pulled the sweater over her nightgown. She’d bought Castiel a bag of on-sale yarn at the craft store, but she hadn’t looked closely at the colors. The sweater itself seemed to be made from all of them, with multicolored stripes down the front and sleeves. The sweater was a little big for her, the collar falling off her shoulder and the sleeves nearly falling over her fingers, but it was warm.
The room suddenly grew cold.
Meg hugged herself. A puff of cool air blew over her face, but her torso was warm in the sweater.
“Thanks,” she said to the empty air. “It looks good, and it’s warm.”
The lights flickered and the cold faded, but Meg knew that she had made Castiel very happy.