Chapter Text
Bone Hall, Present Day-ish
His heart hammered in his chest, and his cheeks were tinted pink.
Humphrey swept into the front door, closing it behind him with a dreamy sigh. Then, back to reality, he kicked it. It didn’t shut without some oomph, of which he had very little. Three kicks and a firm press of his bum to the wood later, it closed. At least now the bloody pigeon couldn’t get back in.
Back to swooning on the right side of the front door: for a moment, Humphrey pressed a hand to his left-breast, thinking himself a child for these feelings. How could he, at this age, feel like this over one woman?! It was crazy! But so was he. And he had never felt anything so intensely.
So be it, he thought. You’re really in it now, mate. This is getting serious. But in getting serious, Humphrey’s hazy mind rationalised, means sharing everything with her. She deserves all of me. She has to know…
His heart sank in his chest. Humphrey had been fully expecting to be bombarded with a hoard of restless spirits, ranging from ones with strange cuts and bruises, to others with old-timey wheezes and diseases, and a Roman general who only had to glare at Humphrey so hard, he immediately gulped back asking: ‘So, mate, how’d you meet your grizzly end?’. He honestly hadn’t the faintest idea.
In fact it was only Alison, the more cheery than her mid-noughties goth get-up would suggest, who poked her auburn head around the doorframe and into the foyer where Humphrey stood slumped. He didn’t even startle.
“Crikey. I know you can walk through me and see my guts and stuff, but, er, don’t tell me you can read minds as well. That’s totally unfair.”
There was a short laugh. “Let’s put it to the test.”
“Let’s not,” Humphrey snipped.
Alison let slip a strained sigh; one that made her already aching chest ache and very broken ribs break some more. “Why don’t you bring her home? We would all love to meet her; you guys’ll have the best time with us, as part of the family.”
Humphrey eyed her sceptically. “You’ve been talking to Kitty, haven’t you? Romanticising all this?”
“Of course.”
“It won’t be that easy, Ali.”
“Why not?”
Humphrey’s gaze hardened on his Doc Martens. He brusquely answered her query; “You know why.”
A slight frown formed on Alison’s thin berry-stained lips; her septum piercing almost turned itself down to follow. “I do, Humphrey, and I’m sorry. It’s not easy to cope with this. And in the real world, I can’t imagine…” Her voice trailed off.
“I tell people I see dead people wherever I go ‘cos I fell out a window that one, two times… People think I’m off my nut! See the issue, ‘eh?”
“It is a rather, um, interesting gift you have…”
“Wreaks havoc on my personal life, thanks for asking.”
“I didn’t, but, I know.” She paused, to glance down at herself. “I know.”
As the youngest spirit forever confined to these, admittedly much more than, four walls; Humphrey found it surprisingly easy to relate to Alison, even if she was half his age. Visibly speaking. In reality, she would be in her mid-forties now too, and sometimes surely acted as such. This bought him a strange comfort. Between the two was a kinship that Humphrey didn’t really have with any other of the ghosts, and not just because Alison also loved her art. Their kinship was unmatched, not even the ones – yes, plural – that had fancied him from the first time he stepped into his new home could top what he felt with her ghost.
And, for what it’s worth, Humphrey had admirers all throughout the mansion. Such as the one that spied on him in the bog, even in a dusty cloud of smoke, and, not forgetting, the young soldier composing sonnets on his near-deathly demise, his broken neck and ghostly-seeing abilities. Oh, what a world.
“I still think you owe it yourself,” Alison continued in a soft, matter-of-fact voice.
She had drawn him out of his fog.
When Humphrey looked up, pushing his thick, black-rimmed glasses higher up the bridge of his nose, he noticed that the ghost had stepped closer to him.
“You owe it to her, Humphrey. You love her, don’t you?”
He thought a moment.
“…I don’t know what ‘love’ is.”
“You don’t have to define it. You just need to know that you’d be making a fatal mistake in not knowing when you have it.”
“Blimey, you and Thomas have been at it!”
Alison grimaced. “Please don’t put it like that.”
“Sorry.”
“Then, it’s settled,” the goth-girl ghost didn’t bat him another eye. “Bring her here, and we’ll make her feel right at home… or I, Mike, Kitty and Pat will. I’m not so sure about the others.”
“What, The General? Being all warm and fuzzy?! Gah, when pigs fly!” Humphrey scoffed, cocking a dark eyebrow.
“Stranger things have happened in this house,” she ominously implored that he had to shiver.
“Still though,” Humphrey argued, “I’ll believe that when I see it, mate.”
Alison laughed again, bringing a black and white striped fingerless glove up to cover the blush of her pasty skin.
“You’ll keep ‘em occupied while I, er, whilst she and I…? Well, it’s not like she’s not into being watched and recording us when—”
Alison’s eyes widened comically.
“Wait, that’s not right.”
Humphrey’s words ground to a halt, almost appalled at what he had implied. Then his face mellowed.
“But, yeah,” his shoulders slumped, “this is a new level of wrong. We need privacy.”
Now it was her turn to raise a brow.
“Pat can keep them busy. Perhaps it’s best to bring her round for Film Club?”
“Hell no! What if she wants to watch TV?! Then you’ll have to all bugger off!”
“Got it,” Alison winked.
“Alison! Alison, hurry up! Ali-oh!” Katherine – an older ghost than Alison but a younger girl than her at the time of when she ate a pineapple, or something - stopped mid skip. “Mr Bone, you’re home! That was the longest three hours ever, ever, ever!”
“Evening, Kitty. Looking lovely as always.”
She giggled overtly. “Of course I am! I can’t wear anything else!”
“And I wouldn’t change your fit one bit!” Humphrey cheered her on, with Kitty batting her lashes to the older-younger-it’s complicated living man.
“As I was saying…” Alison stressed, letting the roaring 20’s spirit bring her ‘sister’ into a half hug, rested her head on Kitty’s scratchy, beaded shoulder. “The ghosts and I can’t wait to meet her. Clearly she means a lot to you. And you should feel comfortable in having her round. There’s nothing— well, not nothing nothing, to worry about, Humph, but you know what I mean. She’ll love it here. And we’ll love her, I promise you.”
“Oh!” Kitty brightened. “Is this ‘Sophie’?! The one you’re so desperately in love with and should marry and have lots of babies with? Then kill her, kill yourself, spend the rest of eternity together looking at your wounds? You think we don’t know about her? You’re bringing her here? How exciting!”
Humphrey, cringing at the ‘wound observation’ part, chuckled to himself at her eagerness. Her ever optimistic eagerness.
He harrumphed, knowing he could deny either woman anything. “All right. Twist my arm. I’ll bring her round, we’ll have our date night here.”