Chapter Text
House Cleaning
The labored breathing of an angry ghost caught John’s attention.
His crap apartment was warded to the gills specifically against unfriendly visitors from other planes, but December had enough magic centered on it that he wasn’t exactly surprised that something had managed to slip through the cracks. Unlike October where people were aware and wary of the dead and undead, December was known for spirits invading people’s homes and tormenting them, and they’d officially ticked over to December a few hours before.
It was odd to have any kind of ghostly invasion that wasn’t a personal connection to him, but he knew it wasn’t since they seemed to be able to slip through at will, and he couldn’t think of anyone who’d be ominously breathing instead of just appearing and talking to him.
John followed the sound of horrible, labored breathing and poked his head around the corner, expecting a horror waiting for him.
That was not what he found.
“What are you doing here, chum?”
Noah Ikumelo, the sixteen-year-old getaway driver and product transporter recently freed from his obligations to the Ri-Boys, a local gang out of Peckham Rye being run by a real piece of work who called himself K-Mag, was on his hands and knees in John’s miserable little kitchen with a soapy bucket and a rag. He’d cut a clear line through the grit and grime that had been there long before John moved into the place, and left the linoleum shiny and clean enough that John didn’t want to walk on it for fear of leaving marks.
The whole room smelled like lemons and pine trees and John’s head spun a bit from the chemical onslaught.
“There a reason you’ve broken into my apartment to scrub my floors at six in the morning?”
With a great big sigh, the teenager sat back on his heels and wiped at his brow before he raised an eyebrow at John, as if John were the odd one for questioning his presence.
<Cleaning.>
“I can see that you’re cleaning, the question is why? And also, how did you get in?”
Noah gestured to the apartment around them, as if the answer was obvious and John was being unreasonable for asking questions. As if this was entirely normal and not the least bit out of place.
<Your apartment is dirty.>
John felt his face scrunch on reflex as he swallowed back a rush of embarrassment. He hadn’t cared about filth in a long time, not since he lost Kit, maybe not even before that. Something about the way Noah casually signed, not a lick of judgement on his face even though they both knew that the place was disgusting, made something terrible gurgle in his stomach.
“It’s not that dirty,” he lied.
The breathing made an appearance again, right in his ear this time, like someone breathing through fluid in their lungs. He glanced over his shoulder, unsure who to expect, and was surprised again that there was no one there staring at him with disappointment on their face.
Normally, his ghosts and demons were easy to see. His tormenters didn’t want him to delude himself, they wanted him to know they were there for him. This invisible presence was a nuisance, but genuinely less so than the normal horrors that followed him around.
Noah slapped the wet rag on the floor a few times and John snapped his attention back to the young man who’d clearly decided to make John his new project.
“So, you’re here to clean, but how did you get in? I didn’t give you a key.”
John looked at his shoulder and saw the impression of fingertips buried in his shirt before the sensation of being watched and the sound of breathing faded along with the grip.
Someone wanted his attention badly.
<If you’re not going to clean, leave me alone.>
Declaration made, Noah dunked the rag back into the soapy water, and started to work away at the laminate again.
The breathing got louder and louder and John felt a hand dig into his shoulder, like someone standing just behind him and clutched tight. It nudged him toward the kitchen, breathing so heavily that John could hardly hear himself think.
Just as John was about to reach for his coat to run off and get supplies to commune with the spirit and figure out how to make it leave him the fuck alone, the sound of water sloshing out of the bucket and on the floor drew John back to his living guest.
Noah’s hand must have slipped, because water was everywhere around him. The breathing turned into a pained moan between John’s ears, like the ghost had started whinging inside his head.
He groaned and rubbed at his temples.
“Fuck off, you little bastard.”
Noah flinched and looked at John, wide eyed like John had smacked him.
“Not you, just a headache I can’t shake off. Hangovers are a bitch.”
Noah nodded slowly, but John could see that the quiet comment had shaken the kid, and that…well, that felt horrible. How was it that just a comment whispered under John’s breath could startle him so much?
“Fuck it,” John groaned.
The spirit could wait until whatever the hell this was, was resolved.
“I can’t just leave you like this, it’s not right. Give me a fuckin’ rag.”
John grumbled dramatically as Noah gingerly pointed him to a few brown paper bags that were lined up on the counter before he started to mop up the spilled water and squeezed it back into the bucket. He hadn’t noticed the sacks of cleaning supplies or the new broom next to them until it was pointed out, but he couldn’t be too hard on himself, given that Noah had broken into his place while he’d been sleeping.
John snatched up a fresh rag and some sort of kitchen spray with googly eyed pine trees on the label and went to work scrubbing down his counters with a frown on his lips as he idly wondered if Noah would let him put together a coffee. They deserved some caffeine for all their hard work.
The ghostly presence faded as they worked their way through what was left of the kitchen and John did actually feel a bit better as Noah poured out the last of the water into the sink and washed his hands. It wasn’t much, the apartment was horrible in and of itself, but even if the laminate on the countertops was old and peeling, it was clean enough to make a sandwich on.
He couldn’t remember the last time he’d had a space that clean and hadn’t been living with someone else who cared enough to make sure it was tidy.
Noah stood and stretched again, looking much less upset and more relaxed as he worked his legs out.
“So, why are we preparing for white glove inspection?”
<Christmas cleaning.>
Christmas cleaning?
“Why?”
Noah leveled a glare at John again puffed himself up a bit like a bird or a cat, no doubt to try and make himself intimidating, which was hilarious. Noah was as mean as a kitten when he wasn’t desperate to survive, there was nothing he could do to intimidate John, even with a gun in his hand.
<You’re getting a clean home for the new year, don’t fight me.>
“I’m not fighting you, but I don’t understand. You don’t need to take care of me, Gobby.”
<It’s not about you.>
John sighed and fished his cigarettes from his pocket. If he couldn’t get himself a coffee, he could have a smoke.
“At least you’re done, right? Kitchen’s clean now.”
The click of glass on countertop drew John’s eye and he caught Noah’s hand moving away from what looked to be a brand new ashtray, placed just so in front of him.
<You’ve got a small place,> Noah signed once he saw he had John’s attention. <It’ll only take a few days to do everything else.>
Oh no. John was Noah’s new project, wasn’t he? The boy had decided that he was pathetic and helpless and clearly needed someone to take care of him.
Why that someone had to be Noah and not…literally any adult instead, John had no idea. He suspected that there weren’t many adults Noah trusted, given the state of his life. Dole certainly wasn’t trustworthy, or Noah would have been under the officer’s dutiful attentions a while back.
“A few days?”
<And then I’ll move on. You’re not the only person on my list.>
Okay, so maybe John wasn’t the special. Maybe Noah went around breaking into grubby people’s places and cleaning them all the time.
He couldn’t decide if that made him feel better or worse.
“You just sneak into people’s homes and clean like a housekeeping Father Christmas?”
Noah gripped his belly and threw his head back to cheerfully pantomime ‘ho ho ho’ at John before he pointed at the couch.
<Help me move that so I can clean the floors in there.>
“You’re a nightmare and I’m too old for this.”
They shifted the couch and Noah grabbed the broom from the kitchen.
“You’re not scrubbing my toilet, lad. I’ll allow a lot, but I won’t allow that, alright?”