Work Text:
Dusk pooled, dense and weary around Button House. The day had held host to rushed catering, with Alison and Mike hightailing it from one end of the house to another, picking up after the patrons of a particularly rowdy business retreat.
The sheer level of enjoyment the event brought Julian left a sour taste in Alison’s mouth, but it was quickly losing the war against exhaustion, and she finally tossed aside the broom and collapsed onto a sofa.
“We are never hosting them again,” she called to the hall behind her, sinking down in her seat so that she could rest her heels on the coffee table.
“Paid well, though.” Mike appeared from the hall with — were those beers? Icy glass was pushed against her palm and she deflated, letting out a long groan.
“I love y—“
“Alison!”
“AH!”
Mike jumped along with her, though more in response to her yelp than to the dead poet leaning inches from Alison’s face.
“Alison, Kitty would like to know if you are ordering take-away food to the house this evening like you had said, and the captain is asking about the television for his army programme, and Julian wants—"
Alison cut him off decisively. “I don’t care what Julian wants,” she huffed, recalling the row he had started with a nudged drink over lunch, “you can tell the captain it’s all recorded and I’ll get to it, and Kitty— why does Kitty care about takeout? She can’t eat.”
“She likes to see the delivery men."
She grumbled, half in response to the ongoing list of other ghostly demands that Thomas was reciting, and half at Mike’s poorly hidden snickering beside her. One of these days she’d figure out a way to put him on ghost duty.
It wasn’t Mike’s fault that he couldn’t lend a hand today, when Mary shrieked so loud in her ear that Alison leapt about a foot in the air while delivering her speech on the history of the grounds to a gaggle of businessmen. Or when Pat had led a handful of ghosts directly through her path to the dining room and caused an entire tray of drinks to be upset over her dress and the floor. Or when Fanny and Thomas got into such a heated debate about the correct order for dishes in the cupboard that Alison’s belted shut up to the empty kitchen was heard from three rooms away.
She said as much to Mike later. It was a habit they had gotten into over the past months of hosting events: between them they would recount the events of the day, and Mike would try to pinpoint exactly which moments of chaos had been ghost-induced, separating them from those that were simply a byproduct of the house itself. Extra points for guessing the exact offending resident. He was getting pretty good by this point.
“…And who was it that made you jump when…”
“Mary.”
“Oh, wouldn’t’ve guessed that one. I’m assuming the drink that guy spilled was the Tory?”
“Julian, yeah. And Pat, y’know the scoutmaster?”
“Yeah I know Pat.”
“Yeah, he was doing some kind of bloody march right through the hall when we were serving—“
“Oh! Those trays—“
“And don’t get me started on Robin—“
“Scaring the balls off of that bloke in the loo?”
“God, what? I didn’t see that one.”
“Ah. Maybe… it was just our electrics?”
“I don’t think it was our electrics. God, sometimes I’d kill for a moment of peace around here,” Alison sighed, wrestling her way into a jumper and crawling into bed; the central heating was still temperamental at best. She would have a word with them all, she thought, tucking herself into Mike’s arms. Tomorrow, she’d talk to them. Again.
The next morning, however, presented shockingly few ghosts. The captain did not appear for his run, leaving Alison wandering around with a useless stopwatch for a few minutes before giving up and placing it down. Nobody appeared to request music, or pages turned, or arguments settled, or chess boards reset… nobody appeared at all, in fact. By the time midday rolled around, Alison was thoroughly concerned.
It was only when she crept up on a hushed conversation that she caught sight of the hem of Kitty’s dress fleeing around a corner.
Later, it was Pat who stepped hastily around a doorway, out of sight the second he was seen.
Fanny and the captain, upon Alison ambushing a hushed conversation in the bathroom, hurriedly rose, greeting her with formal nods and excuses of places to be, duties to attend, and phased right through their nearest wall.
It was only when she watched Thomas interrupt himself mid-mournful-sigh by the windowsill to skitter away upon seeing her that Alison decided enough was enough.
“Thomas, what is it? What’s gotten everyone acting so… so weird today?”
Shoulders near his ears, Thomas floundered for a moment, before resigning to the fact he had been caught. He gradually looked less like a deer in headlights, (in carriage-lights?) and sheepishly explained, “we… heard… your grievances. Last night.”
Oh.
“Now I know we can be bothersome, but you must understand, Alison, that—"
Alison shook her head. She wouldn’t fall for it this time. These were adults, they should be able to act as such. She was going to put her foot down.
“I didn’t mean to be rude, I just… Surely you guys can understand how hard it is to get anything done around here? I know it’s a novelty to have someone who can see you, but…”
She turned suddenly, hearing a cough and scuffle from around the corner. Thomas’ eyes flicked between Alison and the space where their eavesdroppers had been moments ago, before he extended a hand towards her, and tipped his head towards the other end of the hall.
“Perhaps just… just hear me out, and I will be quite out of your hair.” Thomas’ kicked-puppy look had long since lost its effectiveness against Alison, but this was a particularly powerful display. Maybe this was his ghost power, she thought, finding herself following him into the library without intending to move her feet.
The door was closed behind them, Thomas hovered broodingly by the window, and Alison perched on the edge of the desk, arms folded across her chest, waiting expectantly. As much as he loved a dramatic pause in theory, Thomas never seemed able to let them play out in practise, all too eager to begin a speech. As expected, barely a moment passed before he swept around to face her.
“I died,” Thomas began, and Alison grimaced inwardly. Mostly inwardly. Even the most tragic stories lose their sting upon their hundredth telling.
The poet, with trembling lip and one arm raised theatrically before him, took a steadying breath before repeating himself.
“I died… with a hangnail.” The arm dropped to his side, uncannily free of sound. Even after all this time, the expectation of rushing air, or the brush of fabric against fabric, never really went away, and here its absence echoed with an anticlimax worthy of applause.
Alison blinked. What?
“I have tried to romanticise it, and failed most spectacularly. It remains an eternal… well… nuisance.” He brought the offending hand up to his face, his left hand, and inspected the skin around its middle fingernail. Alison could see, sure enough, amidst the faint ink stains was a tiny cut. A wisp of peeling skin.
She looked back up to find his eyes now fixed on her; watched him gather her lack of understanding with a narrowing of eyes and a small step backwards. Ever the dramatic.
“How do I put it… M— Alison,” the my dear hung tangibly in the air between them, bitten off but never far from slipping back into conversation, “what would you say is the most bored you have ever been?”
Alison felt her own brow furrow, and leaned back against the table. “Huh… I don’t know… I had a teacher, year six I think, who said that only boring people get bored. Which obviously wasn’t true.” It briefly occurred to her that there were many similarities between that teacher and Fanny. “I was usually pretty good at entertaining myself as a kid, but hm… Oh, I hated long car journeys. Couldn’t read or anything cause I used to get motion sick. Would have nothing to do for hours.”
Thomas pointed at her. The gesture wasn’t quite accusatory, but in its abruptness Alison could almost see the lightbulb appear above his head. “Yes! Yes, like that exactly. Now, imagine you had to be in that car for… for a month.”
Head cocked to the side and frown deepening, Alison was beginning to see where this was going. “Okay. Yeah, horrible.”
Thomas’ eyes gleamed. “Now… six months. Just you, maybe another passenger or two, inside your automobile, for half of a year.” Alison could see the delight in his movements as he saw his words starting to take root in her. Slippered feet stepped lightly backwards and he leaned down, hands grasping at the air in front of him. “A year.”
She chewed on her lip. The weight of Thomas’ point was settling around her like thick snow.
“Take your hour’s boredom, your frustration with your companions, your desire to, to…” He once more clutched at an invisible nothing. “To reach your destination… But it takes ten years.” Another step. “Twenty.” His gaze veered towards the uncanny, virtually unblinking. “Fifty.”
Alison had to look down, look at the uneven flooring, at the carpet she kept meaning to get cleaned. She couldn’t bear the weight of his attention as he breathed out, almost hoarse with it, “Hundreds.”
She had no response to that. Childish as Thomas could be, Alison had no choice but to reel for a moment in the sheer scale of his waiting, his existence. Centuries in Button House. Emboldened by the obvious effect of his words, Thomas continued.
“I have heard Mary explain the correct way to prepare potatoes four hundred and fifty three times.”
Alison couldn’t help but look back up at that. Four hundred and…
“I have successfully taught Robin the alphabet no fewer than eleven times.” He drew himself up, his steps animated, eyes gleaming. “He always forgets. I have seen other ghosts go half mad with tedium, trapped too long with their own thoughts and ennui after mere decades, before finally being sucked o— blast, Mary —before moving on. I…
“I have a hole that passes clean through my abdomen, and if I twist carefully I can make my index fingers meet in the middle.” He winced immediately, almost cutting himself off, and held up a hand before Alison could speak. “Pray do not ask, it’s ghastly, but it is the kind of thing one discovers when trapped for an apparent eternity with no means of progression.” His movements drew close to frantic, and Alison considered interrupting him in order to prevent some kind of explosion. Something, however, told her to let him speak, (how rare,) and she did.
“I have seen generations of the living pass through this building.” He was pacing back and forth at speed. “I have memorised multiple different ways to tan mammoth hide, cross stitch a hydrangea, pitch a tent, and lace a corset. I know the Captain’s bedtime, his favourite patrol route around the property, the full name of every man who spoke against Julian in parliament. I once had romantic feelings for Sir Humphrey for damn near a decade!” Thomas paused, brought up short by his own tirade, and shot a look at Alison. “Don’t tell him I said that.”
“He doesn’t know?”
“I can be very subtle with my affections.” His chin jutted, and Alison sucked in her lips, suppressing a laugh. Despite his chest heaving with the force of his rant, there was an answering glimmer in Thomas’ eye. So he is capable of self awareness, Alison thought, a moment of fondness overcoming her.
His outburst ebbing, Thomas’ pacing slowed until he was once more standing before Alison, performer’s posture never slipping. “I died with a hangnail. I have had it for centuries, and I will have it for the foreseeable future. I will have it, probably,” a pained look drifted across his face, “long after you have left this house for the last time.”
Alison felt her face soften, and, not for the first time, wished she could reach out in comfort, touch the immaterial. She opened her mouth, only to close it as Thomas raised a quick hand, his head bowed.
“I am not asking you to live at our beck and call, dear Alison,” his voice was soft, and she decided not to call him on the dear, “simply that you bear in mind, once in a while, that the cool air of the grounds and the warmth of the halls feel no different to spectral skin. There is no change for us, no destination we can journey towards. We have made our peace with this, to varying degrees, but…” he glanced down once more, not towards his fatal injury, but towards his hand. “Some wounds never fully heal.”
Mike walked in, several hours later, to find Alison sat alone in the living room, on the floor and yelling merrily at a monopoly board. He was always cautious at times like these. Picking his way slowly and overtly towards his wife, Mike recalled her explanation of how unpleasant the ghosts found it to be walked through. He felt ridiculous, but Alison had said it helped. It sounded like the least he could do, especially judging by the hectic waving of her hands and Alison’s mediation of what was apparently a very heated game.
“Robin— Robin! It’s not real money it doesn’t matt— Oh my god, captain—“
He had overheard what sounded like a very serious conversation earlier, and decided to keep busy until things had calmed down. Well, as much as they ever did in this house. It had sounded like Alison was laying down ground rules, but her tone was apologetic. Gentle. It had seemed as though some kind of understanding was being reached, so he had left them to it.
Now, Mike settled down just behind her on the floor and rested his chin on her shoulder, a point of warmth within the chilly building. “Good game?”
She grinned and leaned into him, lowering her voice to a volume Mike assumed became inaudible beneath the clamour of the undead, though it rang out comically loud in the empty room around them. “Julian is raking it in at the moment, obviously, but Kitty somehow owns half the board. The captain’s just mad that his tactical training isn’t as helpfu— wh—Humphrey!”
Mike could do nothing but chuckle as Alison launched herself back into the game, one hand over her mouth in jovial outrage at… whatever some ghost had said. He watched fondly as she rolled dice, moved tokens and doled out colourful notes between playerless piles around the board, and found himself unable to picture how their lives would have played out had they found this house uninhabited. He couldn’t imagine loving it half as much as this.