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Mike's mother hung the mistletoe up on the door frame. With a smile in her eyes, she turned to Alison and said, "Just in case you're hiding any handsome men in the house".
From where Pat stood, he smirked and adjusted his necker. Behind him, out of the corner of his eye, he saw the Captain do the same.
Alison turned back to them.
"You'd be lucky," she said slyly, winking.
Pat looked affronted.
"The sauce of it", he exclaimed to protect his honour, but his heart wasn't really in it.
It wasn't a living woman he wished to catch under the mistletoe anyways. He swallowed before sneaking a look at Cap over his shoulder. He absentmindedly played with his necker again. Pat knew that the Captain wouldn't be thinking of kissing Alison either, so he briefly wondered who popped into Cap's head. He'd known the Captain for more than 35 years, and as well as having a decent track record of knowing who was like him, Pat has heard the Captain make one too many blustering comments for it to be a coincidence. But knowing someone is into people of your gender is very different to knowing if they're into you .
Sure, Pat's daydreamed a million confessions, both from himself and Cap – in the moonlight, under a dynamic sunrise, during an impassioned speech during the club of the same name, to name a few – but he'd be a fool to ever act on those daydreams. God only knows how badly the group's dynamic would be messed up if their informal number 1 and number 2 had an irreparable falling out. Eternity is a long time to spend with someone who wouldn’t even be able to look at you out of fear and shame.
Pat had travelled a long way down this familiar spiral before the Captain noticed he wasn't behind him, and called out as he left the room, "Come along Patrick."
The Captain marched off to make sure the rest of the decorations were going smoothly, and Pat sighed. He shook his head, hoping to clear his thoughts the same way one would clear an Etch A Sketch board.
--
Time is… slippery as a ghost. His grip on it was even less tangible than his grip on that mistletoe would be. With no calendars or watches that they could use for keeping track of the date, it was difficult. Pat recalled summer break as a teenager, where the days all blurred into one, and by the time you realised that you could have, should have, done so much more with your time, you were back at school. Being a ghost was rather like that, though seemingly endless.
Pat thinks his clubs have had a somewhat positive impact on the lives (deaths?) of the other ghosts, though; something to pass the time, company to keep other than their own thoughts. In keeping with his own Scoutmaster traditions, Pat would theme his activities around Christmas whenever the weather got colder and the days got shorter. Pat missed being in a house full of Christmas. Most of all, Pat missed the decorations.
Somehow, Christmas didn't seem the same without them. He remembered the tinsel, the bunting, the handmade ornaments of his youth. When he moved in with Carol, she had brought the crosses and nativity scenes, which was certainly new to him, but Pat had always lived by the principle 'the more, the merrier.' Pat, the big romantic, loved mistletoe most of all. He'd given many pecks on the cheek at Christmas parties, shared kisses with his partners, and on one memorable occasion, gone much further than kissing with Carol under the mistletoe during one of their first Christmases together.
It hurt, thinking of her sometimes, but he'd forgiven her, and was certainly working on moving on. He was doing much better since Alison and Mike had arrived. A true tether to the living world. Their presence in the house had also helped him get in the Christmas spirit. Visualising the decorations had nowhere near the same effect as actually seeing them.
--
After the Christmas tree fiasco, Mike sent them all to bed at 8pm. Pat wasn't sure why the ghosts listened to him, yet they all retired to their rooms. Ever a man of routine, Pat wasn't planning on going to sleep until 9:30. Well. He wasn't going to sit in his room for the next hour and a half, and with nothing to read, he pushed himself off his bed and decided to take a stroll. Pat made it exactly 10 feet away from his room before colliding with the Captain.
"What are you doing?" They both hissed at each other.
Cap cleared his throat, "I just fancied a walk about the house, I don't see the issue with that."
Pat sighed and pushed his glasses back up his face; this man was always on the defensive. His heart whispered the observation that had Cap been able to continue on his path, he would have walked right into Pat's room. His brain whispered back a million more reasonable explanations. Why on earth would the Captain walk towards his room? Pat sighed for a moment before presenting a solution.
"Why don't we walk together? We could both probably use the company."
The Captain gave a strange aborted strangled noise before nodding. They fell into step beside one another, sharing a somewhat comfortable silence.
--
They were just passing through the doorway of the library when they heard a creak and a light flick on. They froze like children caught out of bed, despite the fact that a) the chances were low that whoever this was would even be able to see them and b) they were grown men, allowed to wander around this house whenever they pleased. When they came to realise these facts, Pat took notice of the particular doorway they were in.
"Mistletoe." He said softly.
The Captain made a strangled noise before starting,
"Now, look, Patrick, I-"
"Would you just call me Pat?" He interrupted.
He knew where the Captain was going with his speech, he'd heard it plenty of times before from a wide range of people when he was alive, and at least a million times from the Captain in his imagination. God knows why his brain chose to change the subject so abruptly like that, though. A mix of anger and denial, he supposed.
"I don't know what it is about you and people's full names - likely another barrier with which to shut them out. 'Oh surely if I don't call people by their affectionately given nickname, and instead use their legal, God-given name, I won't be able to let them get close to me. I won't show them how much they mean to me'." Pat had begun speaking in a poor imitation of the Captain's voice before deciding it was weird, and undercutting his argument, and cut it out. He continued, undeterred. This emotional outburst was a long time coming.
"We don't even know your name! I've bloody well had it! 'The Captain' is so informal and distant, and I know that's why you use it, but would it kill you to let us in?"
With every word, Pat's voice grew louder and he stepped further into the Captain's space. He could feel his face growing red, and his finger pointing emphatically at Cap.
"We're stuck with each other whether you like it or not, and it's not like the world will end if you let your walls down just a touch! I'd love to know what you're thinking from time to time. I feel like I'm going crazy every time we interact, I need to know if you even like me back!"
Well.
He hadn't meant to say that last bit out loud, and from the Captain's swallow, he hadn't expected to hear it.
Pat stepped back, "I should go."
He turned away, still processing what he had just done. Merry fucking Christmas to him, then.
"Patrick… Pat." The Captain's soft voice froze Pat in his tracks. He turned around warily as the Captain sighed and apparently started weighing up what to say.
"I do have a lot of walls up, you're right. I'm not used to receiving love, platonic or, uh…" he cleared his throat but pushed through. "I'm not talking about any of that anytime soon, but I suppose it wouldn't kill me to let some of these feelings go from time to time. I- Look- Patri- Pat. I... like you too, and when I first realised, I thought I would take those feelings to my grave… or second grave, but I never thought you would reciprocate. The… nickname thing was another way to keep you, well, everyone at arm's length."
While Pat appreciated the pseudo-apology and explanation (and in his heart of hearts he knew all of that already – it had been hard enough for Pat to figure out his own sexuality 40-odd years after Cap’s time, he couldn't imagine what it had been like for Cap, especially as a military man – it just felt good to hear the Captain say it) he couldn't really process anything past Cap admitting he liked him back. He felt happy enough to start boogeying at Cap's confession, but, thankfully, he didn't. Instead, he stepped forward, and with confidence he didn't feel, nodded up to the mistletoe, and asked,
"May I kiss you?"
Cap nodded, and before either of them could chicken out, Pat stood on his tiptoes and leaned in. Cap's mouth was tentative at first but became firmer as he grew more sure of himself. Pat closed his eyes and sank into it. His arms reached up to cradle Cap's face as Cap slowly placed his hands on Pat's sides. Thumbs tracing gentle circles on the sides of Pat’s stomach, Cap deepened the kiss, and Pat slowly guided them backwards until he was leaning against the door frame, leaning there to support his poor knees. It was soft and slow and perfect. The soft tickle of Cap’s moustache on Pat’s nose was almost enough to kill him off a second time. Pat felt a smile growing on his lips, no doubt felt by Cap too.
They broke apart a short while later, and Pat pressed their foreheads together. Cap smiled slowly, and Pat laughed despite himself.
Cap leaned back, apologising for not being ready to share his name with Pat just yet. Pat apologised back for pressuring him to reveal it; “I definitely overreacted about that. I really don’t mind, just do whatever you’re most comfortable with”. It was baby steps, as he told Cap.
They stayed in that doorway for several more hours, talking – and occasionally not talking – early into Christmas morning, routine be damned.
--
"You know," Pat said as they walked back to their rooms, arms linked, "Kitty would be over the moon if you actually started calling her 'Kitty'."
"Pat, if we want to keep this thing under wraps, suddenly switching from Katherine to Kitty after 75 years would be awfully suspicious."
"Does that mean you'll only use 'Pat' in private, then?"
"Perhaps… is that alright?"
"I think I can handle it. Baby steps, right?"