Chapter Text
Kindness is difficult. It’s a miserable thing to devote yourself to, as it’s so often taken for granted, or worse, advantage of, by people with far less selfless ventures. Alison was a woman now well-versed in being taken advantage of, much to the thanks of another who had hoaxed herself into her life and sworn she was family, only to be found out as what she really was. Because of this, Alison had promised herself that she would put a limit on her kindness, to not trust as easily as before, but unfortunately, she was finding that such a venture wouldn’t be so simple. After all, the predicament she now found herself in directly opposed that promise.
It had been late and she had been out. Really, she should’ve been at home reheating the store-bought lasagna for her and her husband, but the world seemed to have had other plans for her that day. Now sat sleepily in her run-down 206 model Peugeot, she found herself hazily looking at the road through the glaze of her windshield. A cluster of three spectral bodies were seated contently in the back and kept themselves entertained with chatter amongst one another, while an additional one was found quietly in the front passenger seat. She had been smoking a cigarette, Alison didn’t know ghosts could do that, and she had been casting a glance at her every now and then.
It was strange, she thought, they were all so strange. The more she dwelled on it however, the more she realised that her own bunch were strange too, so she was in no position to judge.
The four of them defied much of what she had previously understood about ghosts, “ghost lore” as Mike affectionately dubbed it, and she wasn’t sure what to make of it just yet. When they had approached her at an intersection where the crossing lights were failing, she had tried to ignore them. When they had asked her for recommendations for any good places to go, and that they’d exhausted all the good clubs in town, she still pretended to be oblivious. It was when the mechanic, the one who was currently sitting in the passenger seat beside her, asked her if she knew where Button House was, that she suddenly became interested in talking to them.
“How do you know Button House?” She had queried, but the four fell silent. A few shared glances between one another, the soldier within the group shrinking in on himself before the mechanic spoke up again.
“I have a friend who had served there during the war,” she took a generous drag of her cigarette, “was just wondering where the building might be,” The other ghosts had just nodded along.
She could do little less than offer her house to the request, to honour the dead of course. Maybe this woman had some grieving to do that had been put on the back burner for decades. She, however, didn’t fail to mention that Button House also happens to be infested with the dead.
A loud, rather obnoxious groan from directly behind her yanked her out of her reminiscence. Alison was all too used to the noise that was perpetuated by those only she could see, so she wasn’t bothered by the polite conversation that took the place of the usual silence on the drive home. Rather, she found it oddly comforting. It reminded her of the nonsense conversations she and Mike would share on long road trips, or the karaoke they would enjoy together.
“Penny for your thoughts, love?” a thick Birmingham accent drifted over the chatter, catching Alisons attention. She glanced to the passenger seat, not turning her head completely, but making sure the other woman recognised she was speaking. She had been looking at Alison, her head resting on her hand, with her elbow upon the car door. “Anythin’ wrong?”
Ah. It seems as though her distant expression hadn’t been missed by one of the ghosts, gathered from the slight concern in her tone and the softness in her expression. She just gave a small smile of reassurance and shook her head gently, still ensuring her stare remain fixed on the ground rapidly passing beneath them.
“No no, not really. Uh, Maddison, was it?” She asked hesitantly, giving a silent sigh of relief when the woman beside her smiled and nodded, “I was just focusing on driving.”
Maddison raised an eyebrow. Alison sighed.
“Well, alright, I was just wondering what the others will think about me coming back with a car full of ghosts. They haven’t seen any other ghosts I don’t think, besides each other of course,” she answered honestly once she realised she had no choice, a small shrug accompanying the end of her sentence. Maddison gave a small hum of contemplation, leaning back into the seat she was on with a gentle sigh of her own.
“Yeah, migh’ be a bi’ of a shock for ‘em there,” she chuckled, moving a hand up to place her Marlboro Red between her similarly coloured lips. The filter of the cigarette had been visibly stained a light crimson, Alison assumed it to be as a result of her lipstick when she had been alive. “Don’t worry abou’ us though, we’ll be on our best behavior ma’am,” she turned around in her seat to face the ghosts in the back of the car, “righ’ guys?”
Glancing in the rearview mirror, Alison was met with a pair of beaming smiles, and an expression attempting to mimic one.
“Oh come on Joan, it’ll be fun!” Maddison insisted to the man who was sat directly behind Alison, she had figured he was the one who had groaned obnoxiously a few minutes ago. At Maddison’s assertion, his unconvincing smile turned into a true grimace as he rolled his eyes. His sour attitude contrasted rather drastically with his elegant, rather pastel Renaissance-era clothing and his soft blond hair, but he rolled his eyes nonetheless.
“It may quite possibly be fun for you, you loose harlot, but I assure you that I will all but gain any enjoyment from this venture,” he spat, while the man sitting in the middle seat scoffed through a smile.
“You only call me a harlo’ ‘cause I wear pants,” she chucked while Joan spluttered incoherently in protest, “Plus, Andy’s only known me for the nigh’ and ‘e thinks ’m dashing,” Maddison lifted her legs up onto the dashboard of the car and crossed them neatly over one another, revealing a dark set of blue trousers with the odd stain of oil and grime decorating them. It matched exactly with her navy jacket, both littered with singes and tears, but even so, it was a uniform she prided herself on.
“Yeah, you’re just a killjoy Joan, let a woman live,” Andy backed while the other man shrunk into his seat, obviously not appreciating being ganged up on. Shrugging his red, cropped suit jacket into a more comfortable resting position, more quips were exchanged between himself and Maddison, who had both obviously grown very fond of one another very quickly. The other two ghosts remained quiet, both in their own form of contentment. Joan was just glad that neither Maddison nor Andy was talking to him, and William just happy to be there, as he often was. Even Alison’s lips carelessly slipped up into a small smile, the group’s antics already reminding her of her own undead friends. Albeit this new batch seemed to be slightly more polite to her, even Joan.
“Oh, we’re pretty much here by the way,” Alison spoke up above the prattle, causing all of their eyes to jolt towards the front windshield. A large house quickly crept towards them from the near distance, causing a low hum of excited murmurs to fill the car. Admittedly, they were only really supplied by Andy and Maddie, as Joan was preoccupied with his angst and William, well, he was suddenly feeling all too nervous about this.