UNFINISHED BUSINESS
pairing. sasappis x ghost!reader
summary. (requested) as the two youngest ghosts at woodstone, you and sasappis understood each other and your laundry lists of unfinished business. at the top of the list for both of you? falling in love
warnings. dead!reader, fem!reader, mentions of death, sad sasappis, happy ending!!
masterlist
“Good morning!” you greeted cheerfully as you entered the living room where the rest of the ghosts were hanging out, lounging and waiting for today’s adventure to spring to life. Usually, when you awoke, you could gauge how the day would go from the looks on their faces. More often than not, they were a little bored as they awaited to see what Sam and Jay had on the agenda for the day, but today was slightly different. When you greeted them, the looks on their faces were a mix of boredom, worry, and confusion.
“There you are,” Hetty said, standing up with a small huff. “Is Sasappis with you?”
You furrowed your brows. “No, why?”
“We not know where he is. We thought he with you,” Thorfinn said, looking slightly distressed at his seemingly missing friend.
It wasn’t possible though for Sasappis to be missing. If he had been sucked off, or passed on to whatever awaited you after ghosthood, someone would have seen it. And it wasn’t like ghosts could wander off the property. You thought for a moment, longer than it should have taken you to realize just where Sass had run off too.
“I’ll get him,” you said, starting toward the back door. The other ghosts began following you, but you paused and turned to look at them. “Um, maybe I should talk to him first.”
You hadn't known Sass the longest, not by a couple hundred years, but the two of you had bonded as the youngest ghosts to haunt Woodstone. All of them had unfinished business, that’s why you all were stuck in the mansion, but you and especially Sass had so much unfinished business that it felt overwhelming at times. That was when you’d each need to get away from everything to mull it over. But as you quickly learned, mulling it over alone was even more isolating. Then, one day you stumbled upon Sass sitting alone by the large pond on the property. From that point on, whenever the two of you felt extra jaded about your untimely deaths, you’d find yourself by the lake with each other, slightly soothed by each other's company.
There were protests from the other ghosts, except Thor. He knew Sass the best since they had been dead together the longest. He stepped forward and placed a heavy hand on your shoulder, offering you a nod before he turned around and did his best to explain to the others why it was best that you go speak to Sass first. While he did that, you slipped outside and headed toward the lake.
You found Sass in his usual spot, with his feet pulled up to his chest and his chin resting on his knees.
“Hey,” you greeted quietly, as to not scare him, before you sat down beside him on the slightly overgrown grass.
He offered you a weak smile in return before his gaze returned to the rippling water. The rising sun glittered across the surface and it bathed everything in a warm orange glow.
“Everyone was worried about where you ran off too,” you said. “I think they thought you got sucked off or something.”
Sass shook his head. “Like that’ll happen.” The edge in his voice made you frown. “I’m never leaving this place.”
“You don’t know that,” you said, gently.
He laughed bitterly. “I’ve been here 500 years and still have unfinished business. I don’t think I’ll ever finish it all. It's not like it was one thing I wanted to do; I had everything left to do.” And it wasn’t fair. All of the ghosts at Woodstone had potential in their lives, lots of it, but died before they reached it. But Sass, one of the youngest at the mansion, had his whole life ahead of him. He had hardly started it before he passed, and after five hundred years it was probably hard to see a point of even trying to continue completing any unfinished business in a world so different than the one you’d been alive in.
There was little you could say to make him feel better. Instead, you scooted closer to him and placed an arm around his shoulder. Like second nature, he shifted his head from his knees onto your shoulder, melting into your side as you both kept your gaze on the lake. You stayed like that together for a while, until the sun had risen, and the sky was a brilliant, cloudless blue. Only after that did he lift his head and turn towards you with a small, sheepish smile on his lips as he rubbed his eyes.
“Sorry,” he muttered. “I didn't mean to dump that all on you. I just…” he trailed off with a sigh. “It’s just nice having someone who understands.”
You brushed a couple of rouge pieces of hair from his forehead and smiled. “Don’t apologize. That’s what I’m here for. We both have unfinished business, a lot of it, but at least we died on the same property. I think that makes up for some of it, us getting to be…friends.” Friends didn’t quite feel like the right word. What you and Sass had was more than just friendship, it was a connection that no one else really understood. You were still practically just kids who had died on the verge of their lives starting and you were trying to figure it out.
Sass’s expression became unreadable for a moment before it turned into a small smile. “Yeah. Friends.” He stood up and offered you his hand before pulling you to his feet. Together, you walked back to the mansion, where Sass was swept up in whatever daily plan the other ghosts had to keep their boredom at bay. You, however, broke off from the group and found yourself in front of the series of photographs that Sam had put up along the upstairs hallway. She said it was a little homage to the ghosts of Woodstone, some of them anyway. She had found old photographs abandoned in the basement from the many lifetimes of Woodstone. There was a family portrait of Hetty that Sam had smartly cropped in the frame not to include Elias. There was a photo of Alberta on stage and a hand-drawn photo of Isaac and his regiment that Jay found for a couple bunks on something called E-Bay. It was sweet, you thought. There was even a photograph of you when you were a little girl at your aunt's wedding that took place at Woodstone ages ago. In the picture, you stared up at the bride with a stary gaze full of admiration and hope that one day you’d fall in love and have a wedding of your own.
The list of your unfinished business was long, but near the top of the list was to fall in love. You’d come close in your lifetime, a couple of times, but you had died before anyone became serious enough to plan a wedding. As a ghost, you still sometimes felt like the little girl in the photograph, captured by the idea of love with a dream to feel it yourself. As foolish as it was, you still held out hope that it would still happen to you. How, you weren’t sure. But the large and bleeding heart of the little girl you had once been still existed inside of you, underneath cobwebs.
“There you are,” a voice came from behind you. “We’re about to play charades.”
You threw a glance over your shoulder as Sasappis approached you, seemingly in better spirits than earlier. “I might pass today,” you replied.
He stepped in line beside you, nervously playing with the beads on his clothing out of habit. “I didn’t bum you out earlier, did I? Because I’m sorry if I did-”
You cut him off with a shake of his head. “Stop apologizing for how you feel, Sass”
“Sorry-” You shot him a look and he sighed, hanging his head. “What I mean is, I didn’t want my bad mood to rub off on you.”
“There was a lot on both of our lists,” you said, earning a slightly confused look from him. “Our list of unfinished business. There was a lot we both wanted to do. I really wanted to fall in love like my aunt in this picture. Look how happy she looks.” Your aunt was practically glowing beside her partner, dressed in white with a look of pure admiration and love that one could feel radiating off of the framed photo.
He gazed at the photo for a moment. “You looked happy too.”
“I was. I remember that the whole day here felt like a dream. That’s why I came back a couple of years later. I didn’t know I’d end up dying here. though.”
After a beat of silence, Sass said, “It was on my list too, falling in love. Well, technically I was but I was too scared to tell her. Then I died and that was that.”
“Looks like we both fell short there, huh,” you said, laughing breathily in an attempt to lighten the mood.
Sass’s brows furrowed and he pressed his lips together in a thin line as he stared at a spot on the floor for a prolonged moment. “Maybe…Or…” He snapped his gaze upwards, falling onto you. “Can I say something that might be, uh, a little crazy?”
You smiled. “We’re ghosts living in a haunted house, Sass. There isn’t much you can say that could be crazier than that.”
“I wouldn’t say that yet,” he muttered under his breath, but you still heard it. He turned his body toward you and rolled his shoulders back. “I missed my chance when I was alive to tell someone I liked them. I was scared and a little bit of a coward. But, you know, I’ve had five hundred years to think about what I would have done differently if I ever liked someone again. But I never thought it would actually happen.” He spoke quickly like he was trying to push out his thoughts before they got too jumbled inside his head. Even as he took a quick breath, there wasn’t enough time for you to say anything before he started again. “And maybe this isn’t…I don’t know. Maybe it’s a long shot and a stupid one. Maybe you just see me as a friend and that’s fine. But I,” his breath caught in his throat for a moment as his gaze fell off of you. “I like you.”
Your eyes widened at his admission; speechless and breathless. You body moved without help from your brain as you stepped right in front of Sass and placed on hand on the side of his face, getting him to look at you. His eyes were swarmed with unease and nervousness, like the young kid he was and not a five-hundred-year-old ghost.
“Really?” you asked, voice just above a whisper. He nodded. Your lips curled up in a smile. “I like you too.”
He let out a breath in relief and matched your smile for only a moment before his arms encircled your waist and pulled you in closer before he pressed his lips for you. You hugged your arm around his neck and kissed him back like you had silently wanted to do for years.
The kiss was short but sweet, as it was interrupted by a hardy laugh that startled both of you. “Thor knew it!” You both spun around to see all of the ghosts as they made their way to the usual room for charades.
“About time,” Hetty scoffed.
You gazed back at your photograph and smiled brightly at the little girl. You had been wrong. Not all of your unfinished business had to stay unfinished. Perhaps there were things you weren’t to accomplish in death just as the things you had accomplished in life.