21 October, 1893 — Leonid Fisk's House

Victor had expected the Spirit Division fellow to be angrier than he was, when the whole mess was sorted out. Victor had lied (or at least omitted rather most of the necessary context) in order to get him to take him to the Dempsey house in the first place, after all. Whatever irritation he might have been feeling at being blindsided seemed to have been tempered by pity after whatever he'd overheard through the door, though. Back through the floo and at the Ministry, Greengrass had seemed more mopey than anything. That was fine by Victor, who wasn't up for much conversation. He certainly wasn't up for revisiting the whole situation for Desiderius Morgan, so he had slipped back out the Ministry door and onto the streets of Hogsmeade before Greengrass could tell him whether or not his presence was required in the Spirit Division for anything else. If they needed him to make a statement or something, they knew where to find him, he supposed.

It occurred to him halfway back to the house that they might actually hunt him down for something a little more aggressive than making a statement. Christabel's brother was soon to be the Minister, and he'd already threatened to have Victor magically removed from the house. He might pressure the Spirit Division to issue a restraining order, or an arrest, or something — or maybe they'd do that even without Ozymandias pressuring them to, given how much of a loose canon he'd acted today. (He had not exactly been planning to storm the Dempsey house and threaten to search it top to bottom in order to find Christabel, even if she didn't want to talk to him, but that was in effect what had occurred). The idea of going home and waiting around for someone to come and lecture him on ghostly etiquette, or give him a slap on the wrist and tut tut about his behavior, was positively odious. Particularly since Beatrice, she of the well I simply don't understand why you can't be bothered to knock, and nevermind that you no longer have hands, would of course be at home to observe the whole thing and look smug, and lord it over him for years to come.

So he simply didn't go home. There was nothing positive waiting for him at home. Bea had made it clear that she saw his continued existence as inconvenient. Christabel only cared about herself. The only purpose in hovering at home would be waiting for depressing things to happen — the Spirit Division to come chastise him or Christabel to come fetch her things and try to make another scene where she could play the victim. He didn't want to go home and wait for those things. He didn't want to go home until all of this was over, and all the unpleasant things were far behind him. And he had time, was the thing — he could disappear, for a week or a month or a year, and it wouldn't make the least bit of difference to anyone. The only trouble was figuring out where to go.

It was lucky that he still remembered which building it was; he hadn't been here in months. Talking to Leo had the same depressing aura that talking to Christabel had had, since his death: he felt that just by existing in the room he was reminding them of their grief, and their grief reminded him of what he had lost, and it ended up unpleasant for everyone. After this latest fight with his wife, though, he wondered if he had been unfair to Leo in drawing those conclusions. He'd had far more conversations with Belle, obviously, because she'd lived in the same house — but it was clear to him now that she had only ever held her own feelings close to her heart, and had never cared much for his. Maybe in his interactions with Leonid he'd been projecting all the negative feelings from conversations with Christabel. Maybe he'd been cutting himself off from someone who might really care about him, in the name of trying to make it easier for them both.

It was the right house, though; he recognized the furniture when he drifted in through the side of one of the walls. By this point it was evening (he had wandered the woods on the edge of Hogsmeade a while, thinking) and Leonid was home.

"My wife left me," he announced, then, "Oh, sorry. Was I interrupting anything?"

---

Leo said no, but when Victor noted that he was setting aside a book he still felt as though he were interrupting. It had been a long time since Victor had had the luxury of reading something; he would have liked to have been left alone with a book for a while. He had to fight the urge to stop the conversation and ask what Leonid was reading, but he recognized that only half of that impulse was curiosity, and the other half was being quite willing to avoid the more fraught conversation he'd been intending to have. And since he had floated in and started with a dramatic announcement, he probably ought to see it through, now.

"Yes," he agreed, to wanting to talk about it (or to vent — he wasn't entirely sure that what started as the former wouldn't veer into the latter). "Er — actually, that probably wasn't the right way to start. The conversation I actually ought to have, anyway." It was the start of the train of thought that had lead him here today, but the context went back a lot further — and probably at some point he would have to address the fact that he hadn't visited Leo for months.

He paused and made a gesture as though to wipe the slate clean. "I've been going a little bit crazy, since yesterday night, and it's made me realize some things."

---

One sentence, but it perfectly encapsulated the difference between his interactions with Leonid since his death and those with Christabel. How had he been so blind as to think they'd had any similarities at all? I'm here for you, Leonid said. Christabel had said what does this mean for me in the first conversation they'd had after his death, where Leo had offered to turn the pages of books for him. And earlier today, where Christabel, knowing all of the context of the situation and having heard how he was feeling, emotions he hadn't shared with anyone else, had said and yet you were not the one who lost everything; Leonid, knowing nothing at all, and after Victor had all but cut him off for months, said I'm here for you.

"I don't think I deserve that," Victor said, voice wavering slightly. "But thank you. I've realized — I think I've had my priorities all wrong," he continued, swallowing. "Not just since I died. Probably forever. And I think I'd like to — stop."

---

Was he capable of stopping? Good question, he supposed. He'd been following the same patterns all his life; why should the resolve of an afternoon change anything?

"I think so," he said, then a thought occurred to him and he added with a slightly manic look: "Old habits die hard, but I've died once already. I think my habits can afford to do the same."

As for what the priorities were... "I want to stop spending my time and energy making other people happy. I wasted my whole life trying to do that." Literally, since he was fairly certain the only reason he was here as a spirit at all was because he'd thought, subconsciously, he'd be letting his family down by dying. "I want to do something that makes me happy."

---

Victor was struck once again by the stark contrast between this conversation and the argument he'd had with Christabel earlier today. He opened his mouth partway, feeling as though he'd lost his train of thought, then he blurted out: "Spending more time with you would make me happy."

This had been what he'd been driving towards since he came in, but he was still a little embarrassed to have said it so bluntly. A beat passed where he merely looked stricken by his own words, then he continued hastily, "If that would make you happy — I mean I know we can't — touch, or —"

---

Victor looked a little sheepish, but pleased too. "Well, it was a lot of what we did," he pointed out. And maybe that wasn't exactly true when one broke down the time they'd spent together minute-by-minute, but it was true that whenever they'd been together privately, sex had been at least a feature of the experience at some point or another. They hadn't exactly gone promenading around the lake in Padmore Park or sat in parlors taking tea together. They'd talked, shared stories or jokes, but most often in the afterglow while one or both of them were in some state of undress. And despite what Leonid had always said, despite talking about feelings and love and all of that, Victor had always worried that after his death those feelings would fade with the memories of his touch. Leo was the first man Victor had ever been with who seemed to want more than just the physicality of it all. No matter what he said about emotions and connections, there had always been a part of Victor which had never entirely believed him.

"I don't really need to sleep anymore," he said, still sheepish. He was still reticent to talk about the things that made him different from living people, sometimes, as though if he avoided mentioning them then no one else would notice them. But sleep was something that bodies needed, and it had actually taken him several weeks after his death to even figure out how to sleep without a body pushing him towards it. He hadn't realized it, but fatigue had often been the only thing that quieted his mind when he was alive — when the physical drowsiness was gone, he'd had to learn how to quiet his thoughts himself, which was harder than it sounded. "So I could come by any night. That's probably better than daytime, right? Though you still need to sleep, of course."

---

If Victor still had blood running through his veins he would have flushed at the suggestion. As it was he looked shocked for a second — more at how frankly Leo had said it than what he had said. It had been a long time since he'd openly talked about sex with anyone. Before his death, as a matter of fact, and probably still with Leonid; it wasn't the sort of thing Christabel and he had ever discussed, even when they'd been having it, because of the bounds of propriety.

"I, uh —" he eventually said, feeling inexplicably shy and sure that he looked it as well. "I'd like that, actually."

---

The barely-contained look on Leo's face as he replied said it all. It was such a stark contrast from the past ten months to have someone excited to do something with him again that Victor couldn't help but feel a little giddy. He hadn't expected that to happen again, after he'd died.

"The word," he said, tone teasing on the surface but also, on a deeper level, still a bit shy, as though he could not believe this turn of events had actually taken place.

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