the_gene_genie | OOM: Ghosts of Christmas

"No. Nor hear you.

"Shall we?"

It's not really a question.

'S'pose.'

He takes the stairs carefully, either reticent, or somehow afraid they might break under his weight. He gets this feeling even now, visiting his mother; that the place has shrunk around him, an invisible yoke he wears around his shoulders.

He's pulled up short on the landing. The first thing he sees is himself, standing in the doorway of his bedroom, clutching a toy police car.

'Bloody hell!' he whispers, just in case they can hear him after all. He wouldn't want to explain what he's doing here. But there's no reaction from his four-year-old self. And the voices are louder - one female, worried; one boy, who can barely be heard even up this close.

'This is when me brother had mumps,' he says, because she's bound to be hovering around somewhere.

'I thought he was going to die.'

It would certainly explain the fear on his own small face, and the white fingers gripping the toy.

"Hovering around somewhere" is kind of her modus operandi.

She nods, but doesn't further interrupt his observations, spoken aloud or otherwise.

Gene edges around the figure in the doorway, holding his breath when his shirt brushes near the boy's hair. But there's still no reaction, and he doesn't want to look too closely at his own face. He looks over to his mother instead, currently pressing a damp flannel to Stuart's naked back.

'I'm sorry, luv, won't take long.'

Stuart mumbles something in return, and the elder Gene shuts his eyes, and tries to remember this.

'He kept saying he was sorry,' he says, though he doesn't expect the ghost to care. 'For years after, I thought getting sick was something you had to apologise for.'

Though their mother never forced them to feel that way. Gene looks at her closely for the first time, and immediately feels like a cold blade has been slid between his ribs.

She looks different to how he remembers. Different to the version living in his world. Because, of course, this was then. This was real. He swivels, and looks at himself. Different too, slightly. Easier to see how that kid grew up to be the ghost that haunts him when it suits.

He feels sick. But Stuart's apologising again, and he turns back to watch.

'Sorry, mam. Didn' mean...'

'Well. You'll know better next time.'

Gene frowns. That doesn't sound like a thing you say to someone with mumps. He glances at the Christmas Ghost.

'Everything you show me is stuff that did happen, for real?'

Given that he's recently found out that everything he thought was real is actually a figment of his subconscious, he doesn't feel stupid in asking the question.

"Yes," she says simply.

Or else she'd be the Ghost of Christmas Fiction.

"It happened as you see it happening."

Her siblings show the scenes that are not yet fixed in stone.

The details of her visions were hammered out long ago.

He sits down on the bed he slept in for nineteen years. It feels exactly as he remembers.

Stuart's got big lumps on his face. Gene frowns, and tries to remember what he knows about the disease. He had it young, so it's hazy. But he's pretty sure it's the glands that are supposed to swell up, not the cheeks and mouth. Not leave bruising all over the back, and what he knows perfectly well are welts from a belt.

He sighs, and rubs a hand over his face.

'Don't know why you brought me here,' he mutters. 'Nothing I haven't seen before. Or had meself.'

But he hadn't seen it, had he? He's four years old, over there in the doorway. And yes, he remembers knowing that if you weren't quiet around his dad - or even if you were, sometimes - you tended to get a smack. But not like this.

'Sorry,' Stuart says again, and their mother sighs.

'Nothing to be done, Stuey. You just lie here and get better.'

'Yeah, but...'

'Enough.'

Out of the corner of his eye, Gene sees his young self's head raise at the exact moment his does. Both surprised, but the lad actually flinches. Their mother is scowling, sponging Stuart harder now, enough to make him whimper.

'You knew very well that if you cheeked him, he'd do this. And you knew very well I'd get it too. You keep doing this, Stuart, he'll start on Gene as well - is that what you're trying to do? Pass it on to your brother?'

'No! No, I didn't-'

'Well, it's going to happen anyway. Bloody young idiot. Stop saying sorry, and start bloody behaving yourself.'

Gene feels the blood draining out of his face. He doesn't remember this conversation, but it's not like he couldn't have heard it. Maybe he was too young. But he knows now, and it feels like a punch in the solar plexus. For a second, it's hard to breathe.

In his world, his mother is...his mother. Even since he found out the truth, he barely questioned his version of her. But if this is the reality - this woman, looking more pissed off at the thought of what's going to happen to her, than having sympathy with her beaten son - then it's nothing like the woman he knows is living back in Manchester.

'Shit,' he says, under his breath. It's mainly to mask the twist in his chest.

'Shit, shit, shit.'

The Ghost stands in the doorway, behind the four-year-old Gene, her hands not quite resting on his shoulders, and her eyes on scene in the room.

Because if you're going to force people to watch things like this, you do rather have an obligation to watch them as well.

Stuart's crying.

How did he not remember that?

Stuart never cried. He was the one who wiped his tears, until he got old enough to learn how to hold them in.

It's a lesson he's on the verge of forgetting right now. He always preferred to remember Stu as he was when he was a teenager, before the drugs got him. In those golden years when they'd both grown old enough to take their dad, and dish out some of what they'd been taking from him for years. Those few years when they weren't afraid any more, before Stu broke, and tried to hide in chemicals.

Before Gene went to work one day, and got his head blown off.

He presses a hand to his forehead now, and closes his eyes to ward off the ache behind them. It's all in the past. He knows it. He knows it. There's nothing to be done. Except now, he has to face the fact that his mother might not be what he wants her to be either.

'Stop that,' she says, sharp, and Gene's hand falls away from his face. Only she wasn't talking to him. She's talking to Stu.

'Stop it, Stuart. He'll be back in a minute, and you know how he gets if you cry. I've got to get the turkey in, I can't be...Gene, come here.'

The boy walks forward at once. He's unresisting as the car is taken from him, though he does look at it longingly when it's chucked on the bed. Their mother pushes the flannel into his hand.

'Look after your brother. He'll tell you what to do. I need to sort dinner, unless you both want cheese sandwiches for Christmas?'

She doesn't look back as she walks out. Gene watches himself standing there helplessly, and yes, OK. He remembers this bit. He doesn't need to see any more.

'I want to go.'

He stands up, and rounds on the ghost.

'Take me back.'

Edited 2012-12-09 01:06 (UTC)

She doesn't apologize. She wasn't created to be sincere in her apologies for what she forces people to face, after all.

She simply extends her hand to him again.

As soon as he takes it, the bedroom and the boys in it simply melt away, and they are back in his room in Milliways.

She makes no move to release his hand, though.

Not yet.

And for a moment, he lets her. Not because he feels any particular affinity with her - he wouldn't have had to learn that if it weren't for her, for one thing. But she's awake, and here, and feels real enough for the moment. It's better than nothing, and he's not going to wake Alex to tell her about it.

Just a moment, though. Then he lets out a breath, and runs both hands through his hair, locking the fingers behind his head when he's done.

'What was the point, then?' he asks, though he might have done so already.

'Why show me stuff I can't change?'

She starts to fade, slowly growing dimmer and fainter as she speaks.

"Because you needed to see it."

Not, perhaps, a very satisfying answer, but the only one she has.

"As to why you needed to see it . . . that you must suss out on your own, Detective Chief Inspector.

"With a little help from my siblings, perhaps.

"The next of us should be along shortly."

There's nothing left but her voice as she adds, "Happy Christmas, Gene."

'Yeah,' he says, with no inflection.

'Happy Christmas.'

But she's gone by then. And he's left empty, and suddenly exhausted. He doesn't want anything else to figure out. He's been figuring this shit out for months now, and he's tired. Tired physically, mentally, and any other way that lesser men than he would admit to feeling. He just wants to crawl back into bed next to Alex, and forget about it.

He doesn't. He hates this stuff, hates his past, hates what happened - but he doesn't run. He lights a fag instead, and pours a hefty Scotch.

If there's going to be two more, bring them on. he can put up with it for one more night.

Gradually, a warm glow begins to fill the room.

Gene may find that someone has set a small plate of Christmas cookies in easy reach.

"Oh, honey. You look like you could use these," the Ghost of Christmas Present says.

His eyebrows raise.

'...ta.'

Yeah, he'll never say no to biscuits. Even if they're not Garibaldis. They're scooped up in one hand, while the other holds his glass, and cigarette.

The ghost gets a once-over. The vaguely maternal air is both helpful and unsettling, given what he's just seen, but he supposes it won't stick around for long anyway.

'Your turn to whisk me away to a magical fairyland of my own life, is it?'

"I can't speak for the 'magical fairyland' aspect," the Ghost says.

Though the form she morphs into may be an attempt to get into the spirit.

"But we are here to have a look at your life, Mr. Hunt."

She holds out her hand.

"Come."

He glances at the hand, and drains his glass. Then stubs his fag out.

'And not a red book in sight,' he says, to the room at large, aware that the ghost probably has no idea what he's on about. They likely don't have This Is Your Life where they come from.

'Yeah, alright. Just don't jump out the window like your mate.'

He takes her hand. The other keeps hold of the biscuits in case he gets hungry on the way.

"There are many ways to get to where we need to be."

They don't have to go by window.

The Ghost leads him to a wall instead.

"Let us go this way, then," she says, not pausing at all as they step through.

Into someplace else.

Oh yeah, walls are so much better.

But at least, on the other side of this one, he comes to a place that doesn't hold too many bad memories for him. It's Alex's flat - or what was Alex's flat, before...everything.

'Blimey,' he mutters, and looks around. Everything's changed already. She'd had it all set out modern; white walls, striped sofa, red fittings against clean lines. Though it probably wasn't her, was it? She didn't furnish the place.

This is darker. Black sofa with satin pillows, midnight-blue carpet. A bloke's flat. Though the guy sitting at the kitchen table with his head in his hands doesn't seem to care what the place looks like.

Gene sighs.

'Deacon.'

As if that explains everything.

'My new D.I.'

"Looks like he's having a rather rough time of it, doesn't he?" the Ghost observes.

He looks at Gene.

"Not what you were expecting?"

'...not sure what I was expecting,' he says, in a rare moment of complete honesty, devoid of bravado.

And for a long time, he just stands and watches. Eventually though, and with a sigh, he walks to the table and sits down. Obviously, Deacon is unaware. But Gene still feels a bit like an intruder, like this is a private moment he has no business seeing. Or more - a moment he doesn't want to see. He knows they come to him vulnerable. But they rarely show him, apart from in their odd moments. He demands they step up and get on with the job. It's the best way to help them. And they do step up. Some do it quickly, some take their time. But he gets them all there in the end.

Deacon's not moving, though. For a horrifying moment, Gene considers that he might actually be crying. But there's no sound, no shaking shoulders. The man's just sitting, with every semblance of total defeat.

A couple of minutes pass.

Gene looks over at the ghost.

'Why show me this? I can't help him until I'm back home.'

"Never hurts to have a bit of extra time to think on things," the Ghost replies. "Even if you can't help until later."

That's what he and his siblings are all about when you get right down to it. Potential and what one might make of it.

"Any idea what you might do?"

'What I always do.'

But he doesn't sound convinced. And that's something so rare as to almost make this a first. He looks down at his hands, where the fingertips are pressing together, bending his fingers the wrong way.

'If I still can.'

The Ghost nods. She doesn't ask for details.

"Did you want to stay a bit longer?" she asks.

Or continue on his night's journey?

He doesn't answer.

A moment later, he gets up and wanders on through to the bedroom. Just to glance in, in case there are any clues about the bloke there. But, nothing. There wouldn't be. He only just got here. So he comes back to the kitchen, and stands next to him. He just wants him to move. It's like he's dead, just - well, of course, he might be. But not here.

Gene rubs a hand over his face, and pinches the bridge of his nose.

'You're not really subtle, are you?'

It doesn't take a genius to figure out what this is telling him. Christ, maybe Deacon's just going to sit here until he comes home, and gives him something to do.

He can't deny there's something sad about it. Something compelling about the slump of the man, so different to when he was gobbing off in the office, yelling about his phone. Are they all like that, behind closed doors?

He doesn't want to know.

'Yeah,' he says, quietly. 'I'm done.'

"People tend not to learn from 'subtle'," the Ghost says.

At least not as quickly as they need to sometimes.

She holds out her hand with a kind half-smile.

"Come on, honey."

They'll see where the night will take them next.

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