Chapter Text
Alison found Mike at their office desk, down a wiki-hole, seemingly unaware of Julian haunting him peevishly over his shoulder. Robin dawdled in the corner. Humphrey was installed like a paperweight on one of the bookshelves.
“Oh thank God, at last,” Julian exhaled, straightening his tie, “Would you kindly tell Michael that it’s my turn? He’s been meandering like a tipsy gypsy for over an hour looking at nonsense, and this is when I check my stocks.”
Alison squinted, “No it isn’t. You don’t have stocks anymore.”
“But I still like to check them!”
Mike looked up, “Julian still here?” he looked around, “Give it up, mate, I told you there’d be no laptop for you tonight if you didn’t stop prodding me.”
“I never touched him!”
Alison glanced at Robin and Humphrey, their reactions validating her scepticism.
Alison sighed, “Go watch telly with Fanny and Mary if you’re so bored. You’re barely off porn-scam probation as it is.”
Julian puffed with indignation, “There’s a pattern in all this injustice! That wasn’t me, either.”
She rolled her eyes in synchrony with Humphrey, “Yeah, some other poltergeist cost us fifty quid.”
“Or a certain selfish husband…” Julian insinuated, turning his back righteously on Michael as if he’d planted a cunning doubt about those nudes of Bo Derek.
Alison cut her gaze away from Julian dismissively, rested her chin on Mike’s head, and draped her arms about his shoulders like a neckerchief, “Hedgehogs?”
He smooched her on the wrist and nodded, “I started out researching a new extension ladder for the garden while I waited for you. I guess we both lost track of time, huh? Did it go ok?”
She nodded, playfully mussing his hair with her chin, “Bit of an odyssey, honestly. And you’ve been on a proper adventure as well, I suppose.”
“You’ve got no idea!” Julian groaned.
Mike chuckled, “You’ve got no idea. Did you know that the Incas saw constellations not just in the stars, but in the dark patches of the milky way?”
She grinned, “I did not. I didn’t even know the milky way had dark patches.”
“Aparently there’s a dark llama,” he informed her airily.
“Actually is deer,” Robin interjected.
“Alison, please-” Julian glanced at the keyboard pointedly several times.
Alison ignored them, “Ooh, I like that. And the dark llama has a hedgehog sidekick?”
“Nah. Got to hedgehogs after the dark cloud constellations got me to swans, which got me to emus, which got me to echidnas.”
Julian scoffed, “He’d forgotten whether swans could fly.”
Alison scowled at Julian, suddenly unsure whether she’d actually ever seen a swan fly, or only geese. They were pretty bloody enormous… she shook her head, “But how did you get onto Incas from extension ladders?”
“Climbing competitions, to mountain climbing, to cliff dwellings, to aborigines of the Americas, I think.“ He shrugged
“Well done. What do you want to do for dinner?”
He stretched and groaned, the middle of his back popping, “Don’t look at me, I’ve been slaving away over wiki hedgehogs all afternoon waiting for you.”
She groaned in echo. She didn’t feel like cooking if he didn’t, “What have we got that’s easy,” she grinned and kissed him on the head again, “Present company excluded?”
He ticked off on his fingers, “We’ve got cold cuts, and that good bread, and leftover crudites, so-”
She brightened, “-Kitchen picnic?”
“Sounds perfect. Tell you what, if you’ll put on some small potatoes to boil I’ll make potato salad to go with. We should use those up before they sprout.”
She leaned down and kissed him on the neck, “I love you so, so much.”
He turned his face to her with a winning smile, “Yeah you do.”
“We do need to talk about Thomas, though.”
He nodded crisply, “Sure. Cool. Kitchen?”
“Yeah.”
“Ok,” he closed the laptop slowly, “Bye Mr. Desert Hedgehog, you hibernating mammal of the genus para-echinus, you. You go in the not-today-Julian drawer,” he deliberately shut the drawer with the uneven slider that Julian couldn’t manage with only a fingertip.
“I tol you!” Robin laughed.
Julian fumed, gathering up Humphrey and glaring at Alison. She just shrugged at him.
Robin rubbed his hands together, “Come on. Chess time. You be black.”
—--
Alison checked the back stairs for eavesdroppers, and the couple set to picking off potato eyes and chopping herbs.
She grinned, “Oh, you know what would be fun is deviled eggs.”
Mike nodded, “Sure, just go ahead and pop them in with the potatoes once they’re boiling.”
She filled the smaller of their large pots. “You want tea, while I’m at it?”
“Love one, yeah,” he dropped his voice into a theatrically formal register, “So tell me about your little chat with our Mr. Thorne.”
Alison sighed heavily, filling the kettle.
He looked up, concerned, “That bad?”
“No, not bad. It was good, actually. Really good. Way, way more than I expected, is all, and I still don’t know quite what to think if I’m honest.”
“You told him how he was making you mental, yeah?”
She shook her head, still astonished, “I didn’t have to. He’s put a lot of thought into why I was upset with him. He seemed like he truly didn’t realise the damage he was doing, but he got it on his own, and he’s sorry. Like, properly knocked-him-on-his-ass ashamed.”
“Wow.”
“Yeah. I think he even got his head around the idea that he doesn’t actually love me, despite how in-love he’s made himself think he is, and that my rejecting his objectifying nonsense isn’t the same as us rejecting him as a person.”
Mike nodded, “Fair play to him. That’s impressive. You were right about the chives, by the way, they’re doing great in the corner window.”
“Oh good.” She paused and sighed, “You don’t think I might just be hideously vain and naive then?”
He chuckled a little, surprised, “What? What do you mean?”
She squinted doubtfully, “Thinking that I could inspire someone in his position to reconsider his entire outlook on women, and not just to get back in my good books to try again. I mean, thinking about the way people are, it’s so much more likely that he’s acting out a new angle on the same ingrained game.”
“You don’t think he’s being sincere?”
“No, I do. I mean, I really believe he means it, he said everything right and then some, but he might even be bluffing himself. He’s just been so, so lonely and lovelorn I think he’d work his way to believing anything if it meant having someone to approve of him and validate his fantasies.”
Mike shrugged, “Still an improvement. They say changing the behaviour is an important first step. Can’t hurt to give him a proper chance to change.”
She nodded, “Yeah, and he did seem more at peace in his skin than I’ve seen him before, eventually. It just all feels kind of enormous. Like we’ve been living here a while, and this is the first time it’s hitting me… I mean, life after death. It’s just… genuinely real. No room to doubt it for us. Just ages and ages of time to dwell on things in limbo. Are our souls really built to handle that?”
He frowned at her, “I don’t think that’s on you to solve. At least not in one afternoon.”
She sighed, “At the same time, it’s not fair to have as much power as that over anyone, certainly not with everything else we’ve got going on. Like maybe he’s ready to change, but what if I actually make it worse? What if he builds all this motivation around his obsession with me and then it really sinks in that it’s not going to happen, and it all comes crashing down?”
“Nah, don’t do that. It’s not all on you. He’s a grown man, and he’s got other friends at his side, twenty-four seven, for ages and ages. And even if it doesn’t work out as you hope, it wouldn’t shock me if you managed to do him more good than harm. I mean you are pretty fucking great,” across the cutting board he gave her one of those rascally smiles that crinkled her nose and made her tingle.
“Oh God don’t romance me right now, I don’t think I can take any more.”
He tilted his head to one side with a teasing smile, “Was he romancing you out there? Take back what I said. I’ll kill the bastard.” He chopped the parsley with vengeful vigor.
“He’s already dead, dear.”
“Ohhhh yeah. Handy that.”
“But I do think he wants to be… sort of… romance buddies? Not romance like, you know, but like the literary movement.”
Mike was still stuck in banter-mode, grinning, “You think he wants to rip your bodice off?”
She laughed, “You know that’s not what I’m talking-”
“Ride in on a horse in a thunderstorm, also on a boat for some reason, rip a dress off you that’s already falling off anyway, in a shirt that’s even poofier than your dress and even more prone to falling off? I’ve seen those paperbacks Fanny reads over Kitty’s shoulder, I know what he’s playing at, filthy animal. I’ll skin ‘im.” He made a gallant swipe with the tiny paring knife.
She laughed, “It’s uncanny how you sound just like Fanny does every time I turn the page for Kitty. Are you absolutely sure you can’t hear them?”
“Well, it's everyone's right to be a bit of a Fanny sometimes,” he smirked.
"Some of us abuse the privilege," She smiled, but persisted, “But no, I mean I think he wants to connect with someone about the philosophy of romanticism. It’s the arts movement that was prominent when he was alive, and the style he wrote in.”
Mike pursed his lips and recited, “Keats, Coleridge, Shelly, Wordsworth, Byron, Blake, etcetera. Rebellion against the scrumming materialist wit of the restoration, to be inherited by the decadents. A focus on the beautiful and sublime, the doom and decay and glory of nature and mankind. The worship of passion,” he smirked at her with parodic, nerdy, nasal grandiosity, “I learnt about it. In uni.”
“You do contain multitudes, Mr. Cooper.”
“I contain three liberal arts credits.”
Alison nodded in mock surrender, “But, yeah, that. I think that’s what he’s really been so lonely for, the idea that the world is more than what we can see and measure, and that feelings and passions have value. ‘Beauty is truth, and truth beauty’ and all that. And trying to write about it.”
“It’s all very cringe.”
She grinned, “Was that your final thesis?”
“Nearly.”
She sighed and shrugged, “Well, you’re not wrong. But that’s part of the point, yeah? Heroism and sincerity are utterly cringe, but the world is a lot poorer without them. I get the impression that the other ghosts don’t really connect with him on any of that. And I think… I could?”
He regarded her more seriously, but without ire, “Yeah?”
“Yeah. And I actually kind of want to. It sounds… I dunno, enriching.”
The kettle whistled and she took it off the heat, dropping the eggs in with the bubbling potatoes as Mike put down his knife and got the cups.
After a pensive moment he said “Sounds a little risky.”
She chuckled, “Oh you think?”
“Yeah,” he sounded a little too serious, “He’s not the only one that could get hurt if he’s just using your artsy side to be a cunning little incel prick.”
She smiled, “I appreciate your observation of form, but you know he’s no threat to you, and you know I know you know, so yeah, consider that part of the conversation ticked,” She pointed at the shelf, “My hands are slippery, can you reach-?”
He reached and handed her the teapot she wanted, “Not me, love. You.”
She couldn’t quite bring herself to look at him, gratefully busy with the strainer.
“You’re so careful about that stuff you’d rather go off and sing carols in my parents’ basement by yourself than try to make anyone else understand why it matters to you.”
“If I’d asked you would you have said yes?”
“That’s not the point.”
“It actually sort of is. I don’t want anyone just enduring things I care about and laughing behind their hand, it’s too embarrassing.”
“Hey. I’ve never laughed at you behind my hand.”
“No, and I’ve always appreciated your frank openness.”
“Again, I wasn’t laughing at you, and I said I was sorry about that.”
“Yeah, but I see that apology as a periodic payment rather than a purchase. Rent’s due.”
“I’m sorry I laughed at your high school poetry. I honestly thought you were taking the piss about your former friend group.”
“You could always omit that second part.”
“It’s not a comment on you, it’s to admit that I’m an idiot and I don’t understand it. I know I don’t get it, but I also know it’s precious, and I don’t want to ruin it for you…” he winced, “Anyway, my point is, I don’t want to be That Guy, acting like I decide if you get to have friends, but I also don’t want This Guy messing with my girl like that. He doesn’t exactly sound like the sharpest spoon in the drawer where other people’s feelings are concerned.”
She put down the pot and slid an arm around his waist, “I get it. And all pretended grudges aside, I am shockingly better about my boundaries than I was in high school.”
He put his arms around her and kissed her hair, “I know. Still. I don’t want some broken creep to abuse your trust and sap your passion for life just because you pity him.”
She sighed gratefully, melting into his care, “He’s a ghost, Mike, not a vampire.”
He shook his head resolutely, “The metaphor remains valid.”
She hugged him back, snuggling into his chest, and nodded, “You’re right. Fragile little thing that I am, it would probably kill me.”
“That’s probably his plan,” he rocked gently, “Wheedle into the vulnerable places in your heart, torment you into throwing yourself off a cliff overlooking the moors. Get you all to himself.”
She nodded, “With the only flaw being we don’t have a cliff. Or moors. I don’t think the lake is even deep enough to drown in.”
He tutted, “I don’t like how much thought you’ve already put into this.”
She laughed and gave him a pat on the bum, “Silly husband.”
He gave her an extra squeeze, “Well it’s not on me anyway. I don’t even know the guy. I don’t have to trust him, because I trust you. So what is your gut telling you?”
She squeezed him tight in response, then pulled away, “That I should stop moaning and just risk it. That he’s badly broken but he means well and is tougher than I’ve given him credit for. That he probably will hurt me, but not on purpose. And it’s also possible that I’ll hurt him. And it won’t really be as bad as all that. ‘Tis better to blah blah blah blah, even when it comes to friends. And it might be nice, if it turns out his cringe is well suited to my cringe,” it really would be so nice, she realised as she said it, feeling the idea like the possibility of food after a fast, “What’s yours saying?”
He shrugged, “That no husband ever made his marriage stronger or himself less ridiculous by getting his knickers twisted about his wife’s relationship with Mr. Darcy.”
Her eyebrows went up. He really meant it. He’d really done some thinking since that film crew had brought Toby Nightingale, her tongue-in-cheek “free pass” to their home for a day. Alison poured the tea, “I like that philosophy. Except I’m not horny for him, just very fond, and he’s not really a Darcy type.”
“More of a Heathcliff?” he asked, sceptical.
“God no!”
Mike grinned incredulously, “I thought all those Byronic guys were either one or the other.”
“Did you learn that at uni?”
“Buzzfeed.”
“Ah.”
“Well then what’s he like?”
She considered, stirring her tea too long, “He’s sweet, honestly. Even more than he is vain, which is saying something. Intense, but in a shallow way. Sincere, yet toweringly self-absorbed. Prone to fits of… well everything, but mostly pique and melancholy. He wears it well, though.”
“Good looking?”
She leaned her head to one side, considering, “He’s cute, yeah. I’ll make you a better sketch at some point. He’s thin, with a long face, curly brown hair, and sideburns that don’t really suit him. Nice eyes, though. And he knows it.”
“Sounds like a Darcy to me,” he shrugged.
“Nah, he’s really not. He’s more real than that, but also kind of… elastic? Sort of a Byronic muppet more than a Byronic hero. With a better hairline than Byron. He’ll be almost militantly excited one minute, then in a gothic funk the next time I see him, then terribly offended by something I can’t really parse.”
Mike took the eggs out of the pot with tongs, dropping them in cold water to cool, and turned the heat down to keep the potatoes simmering, “More of a Labyrinth muppet than a Muppet Show muppet?”
She smirked, “Yeah, kind of. If you don’t assume it’s a strict binary and allow that he’s definitely human.”
He frowned,“Tall, dark, handsome, vain, and ridiculous? Well that’s me fucked, he’s your exact type.” He preened and pouted with equally false subtlety.
“Nah you’re safe. He’s not quite as tall as you. Or nearly as dark.”
“Good. I suppose I could have guessed that.”
“But he does wear heels.”
“Fuck.”
She laughed, “Please don’t repeat any of this, though. He really is lovely. I think you’d like him. And especially don’t mention the bit about Byron. It sets him off.”
“Really? How did he handle them making that Byron biopic here?”
She smirked, “About as well as you did.”
He pursed his lips, “I said I was sorry about that. I mean look at us chatting away about your romantic stalker boyfriend with lovely eyes. Look at how unbothered I am. I trust you.”
She smiled, “Fair play, you’ve handled it admirably, in the long run, and it is noted and appreciated. He… very much hasn’t handled it at all, as far as I know. He threw an absolute strop and claimed he was going to try to drown himself. Apparently forgot that he couldn’t. Eventually came back like nothing had happened, and he hasn’t mentioned it since.”
Mike shook his head, “Poor bastard. What’s his beef with Byron?”
“Truly no idea. I just don’t bring it up.”
He nodded, “Fair enough. My lips are sealed.”
She tilted her head to one side, “I hope not too tightly. Those potatoes still need a lot more… simmering time, after all.” She grinned at her absolute failure of an innuendo.
He sidled up next to her obligingly, “Mrs. Cooper, I think you’ve got your bodice on too tight.”