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The Captain hated himself. He had in life and had continued to do so in death. Havers had known this, yet loved him anyway. Then he left. Because the Captain was unloveable, and he knew that. He could barely love himself. He just fell for those who smashed down his door. In death, he had made a friend. Fanny. He never fell for her, and eventually concluded that he never would fall for a woman. He also never told her. About his preferences. About his hatred. Mostly because he was afraid that, like Havers, she would find a way to leave if she knew the truth. So, for forty years, he lived with his fellow ghosts, but felt completely alone. When the scout group arrived in the summer of 1984, he followed their leader, Patrick Butcher, around. Patrick was a man who idolised kindness and, should he die, the Captain believed that he may find a friend in the scoutmaster. Then Patrick did die. Through a weird mess of irony and pain, the man chose to try to befriend the Captain, of all people. Out of habit, he was pushed away. Though as the years slowly trickled by with the ticking of the clocks that adorned the halls and walls of Button House, they grew close. They became friends. And so the Captain fell, as he always did. He fell slowly, as if he was in a film where a character jumped off of a cliff. But he fell. When he and Pat, a nickname he highly regretted agreeing to use, discussed romance from life, he avoided it, asked Pat questions instead. To his disappointment, he came to the conclusion that Pat was very, very straight. So he lived with it. He moved on, he liked to tell himself. By the time Alison and Mike arrived, he went back to being a reasonable distance away from Patrick, and had dropped the nickname.
So, he didn’t expect it to happen. But happen it did. Alison had introduced the idea of “put a finger down” to their gaggle of dead people, and had let Patrick think of ideas. The man went straight for “been in love with another ghost who is very straight.” Patrick was staring right at him. They both put a finger down. This led to the Captain walking straight out of the room and through Mike, exclaiming loudly “Good lord since when was Michael here?” and stalking out to the gardens.
An hour later, Pat found him. And didn’t say a thing. Until he lunged forward, planting a smooch on the Captain’s mouth.
“I know you hate yourself, but please let me love you.”