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“God, you’re weird.”
Greg’s voice was equal parts amused, incredulous, and fond, even through the phone speaker, and Alex couldn’t quite stop his smile as he ducked his head. “Yeah, I know,” he said. “Anyway, we’ll practise it before filming tomorrow?”
“Yeah, all right,” Greg said easily. “Get some sleep – from the sound of it, you’ll need it.”
Alex rolled his eyes. “Yes, Greg.”
“Oi, is that cheek I’m sensing in your tone?”
Greg’s voice was teasing, and Alex grinned again. “Wouldn’t dare,” he said, as innocently as he could muster.
Greg just hummed an acknowledgement. “Sometimes I wonder,” he murmured, but from the sound of his voice, he was smiling. “Goodnight, Alex.”
“Goodnight, Greg.”
Alex hung up the phone and glanced at the clock before heading toward his bedroom to slip into bed next to Rachel, who didn’t look up from the book she was reading. “Have a good chat with Greg?” she asked.
He nodded. “Had an idea for the banter section tomorrow I wanted to run by him,” he said, stifling a yawn.
“Something that’ll humiliate you and make him laugh?” Rachel guessed.
Alex laughed lightly. “Got it in one.” He leaned over to kiss her cheek before yawning again. “Think I’m going to turn in.”
She nodded, still looking down at her book. “I’ll turn the light off when I’m done,” she told him.
He just nodded, his eyes already closing as he curled onto his side. “Goodnight.”
The last semi-coherent thought he had before sleep claimed him was the sound of Greg’s laughter in his ear.
Alex was woken suddenly, so suddenly that it took him a moment to place what had woken him in the first place, realising after a few bleary blinks that Rachel was shaking him. “Your phone,” she said, sounding as groggy as he felt. “It keeps going off.”
He groaned and reached for it, ready to switch it off as soon as he saw that it was 3 in the bloody morning. But then he saw who was calling, and his brow furrowed. “Andy?” he said, confusion furrowing his brow as he answered the phone. “What—”
“Alex.” There was something strained and strangely formal in the way Andy said his name, and Alex’s frown deepened as he sat up.
Something was wrong.
“What’s going on?” he asked.
“It’s—” Andy broke off, and something in Alex’s chest clenched with something he couldn’t quite name. Something like fear – and dread.
But not even his well-honed instinct to mentally prepare for every eventuality could have prepared him for what Andy said next.
“It’s Greg. I’m so sorry, Alex – he’s dead.”
“2 weeks, I think,” he said, sitting at his kitchen table and staring unseeingly down at his diary pulled up on his phone. “We’ll tell the contestants we’ll make a call in 2 weeks. They’ll get their full pay in the meantime – Avalon will pay for that, surely—“
“Alex,” someone said, but Alex ignored them.
“We’ll need to let Channel 4 know about the delay, we may need to push the start date, and then that may feed into the New Year’s Treat, and—“
“Alex!”
This time Alex did stop, because the voice wasn’t Rachel’s, or Andy’s. It was Tim’s, and Alex stared blankly at the man in question. “What are you doing here?”
“What’m I—“ Tim broke off, scrubbing a hand across his mouth. “Rachel called,” he said finally, his eyes strangely red. “You’ve been…you’ve been muttering to yourself for the last two hours.”
Alex blinked slowly, dragging his eyes from Tim to look over at the clock above the oven which told him it was, somehow, eight o’clock in the morning.
Five hours since he’d gotten the call. Five hours since his entire world fell apart.
“‘M fine,” Alex said, looking back at his phone. “You can go. I need– I have to get the details worked out. We didn’t have a contingency plan for this. We didn’t – we didn’t think—“
His voice wobbled, just slightly, and he squeezed his eyes shut, his heartbeat pounding painfully in his ears. “Bit tricky to plan for something like this,” Mark Watson said from his other side, and Alex swallowed, hard, knowing immediately that Rachel must have called him as well.
“Yeah, I’d bet Greg didn’t have ‘drop dead suddenly’ in his diary either,” Tim said, before letting out a noise that indicated Mark had punched him. “Sorry.”
But the joke – such as it was – grounded Alex. Reminded him that this was real. This was happening.
Greg was dead.
He tasted bile in the back of his throat and took one more deep breath before forcing his eyes open. “I have to talk to Avalon,” he told Tim, his voice weak. “We need to plan—“
“You’ve already spoken to Avalon,” Tim told him firmly. “Everything’s arranged. You have nothing else left to plan.”
“Just a funeral.”
The words were out of Alex’s mouth before he even knew he was thinking them, and Tim’s eyes widened. “Christ,” he said, his eyes flickering to Mark’s over Alex’s shoulder. “Surely you’re not—“
“It just makes sense,” Alex said. “The Taskmaster’s Assistant should plan his funeral.”
He stood, more like staggered to his feet, a strange ringing in his ears. He started towards his bedroom, then paused, suddenly unsure of himself, of where he was going.
Mark took his arm, and together he and Tim managed to get Alex down the hall to his bedroom. Alex realised he had no idea where Rachel or the kids were; he realised even more faintly that he didn’t really care.
Just so long as they didn’t have to see him like this, shuffling down the hallway, only remaining upright because of two of his closest friends.
By the time they reached the bedroom, Alex had long forgotten what he was after in the first place, and he sank down onto the edge of the bed for the lack of anything else better to do. Mark squatted down in front of him, and Alex noted absently that his eyes were just as red as Tim’s. “Why don’t you take a little nap, yeah?” Mark suggested. “We’ll be here when you wake up.”
Alex shook his head. “I don’t think I’ll be able to sleep.”
“Think you might surprise yourself,” Mark told him.
Alex shook his head again, glancing around for his phone, expecting it to be in its usual spot on his bedside table before realising he’d probably left it in the kitchen. He half-stood, stopping at Mark’s hand on his shoulder. “I should call Greg’s mum.”
Mark frowned. “Why?”
“I handle his admin.”
The words popped out of his mouth without him even thinking about it, and Tim took a step in from where he’d been lingering at the doorway, something dark in his expression. “Christ, mate, you need to drop the whole assistant bit for thirty fucking seconds or I swear—”
Mark turned to glare at him before looking back at Alex. “Just close your eyes for a bit,” he coaxed, gently pressing Alex back down onto the bed. “You can call her later, all right?”
“Yeah,” Alex said hollowly. He half-wanted to scream at them both to just leave him alone, but the larger half of him knew that they were just trying to help, in their own way. He settled for lying down, curling up so that his back faced Tim and Mark, staring unseeingly at the wall. “All right.”
Despite himself, he must have actually fallen asleep, because when he blinked his eyes open, the morning sunlight was no longer streaming through the window.
He made no attempt to move or sit up, half-wondering if he could just stay like that forever, curled in on himself. But then he heard Mark and Tim having an only slightly hushed conversation behind him. “I’m just saying, you could be a little more supportive,” Mark said.
“Fuck’s sake, I’m trying,” Tim retorted. “I just– he’s not the only one going through it, is he”
Alex must have made some sort of involuntary motion at that, as the next thing he knew, Mark had popped up in his field of vision. “Oh, you’re awake.”
Since there was little point in pretending otherwise, Alex forced himself to sit up. “Not a dream, then?” he asked, his voice hoarse.
Mark tried to smile, but his eyes were sad as he said bracingly, “Fraid not, no.”
“Greg’s dead.”
Alex didn’t know why he said it, other than for the same reason someone kept tonguing a mouth sore despite knowing it would sting. “Yeah,” Tim said. “Greg’s dead.”
Just as expected, it didn’t hurt it any less to hear it confirmed. “Do they know what happened?” Alex asked, because he genuinely couldn’t remember. There was an endless, gaping void between the phone call and seeing Tim and Mark.
“They’re not sure,” Tim told him. “Maybe heart attack, or brain aneurysm, something like that. Something fast, whatever it was.”
It would’ve had to be fast – Alex had been talking to him only a few hours prior, and he wondered idly how anyone had even known at that time of night. Maybe Greg had fallen, the sound of 22 stone hitting the ground enough to wake his downstairs neighbours.
An almost hysterical laugh bubbled in Alex’s throat and he had to swallow to tamp it down. He glanced at the bed, realising he’d slept on Rachel’s side. “Where’s – where’re Rachel and the boys?”
“She took them to your parents’,” Mark said.
Alex nodded slowly. “That’s good,” he said, immediately relieved that he didn’t have to try to be a good husband and father on top of just trying to hold himself together.
“Yeah, she said she’d be back probably tomorrow. Maybe leave the kids with your parents for another day or two.”
Alex took a deep, shuddering breath before forcing an approximation of a smile. “You don’t have to stay until she gets back,” he told them. “I’ll be fine.”
Tim let out a derisive snort. “Great, yeah, we’ll just piss off and leave you here by yourself, shall we. Friends of the year there.”
“What Key’s trying to say is we’re not going anywhere,” Mark said.
“Except maybe to the shops,” Tim added. “I had a look while you were sleeping and your beer supply is a bit low.”
Alex barked a short, dry laugh, scrubbing a hand across his mouth. “Could go for a beer,” he admitted, before glancing again at where his phone would normally be. “Where’s my phone? I still need to call Greg’s mum.”
He didn’t wait for Tim to make whatever asinine comment he was certainly going to, standing up on much steadier feet than before and heading into the kitchen without looking to see if Mark and Tim were following. Mark cleared his throat. “Do you, er, have her number saved somewhere? You may want to use one of ours.”
Alex ignored him, reaching for his phone on the table where he’d left it, though he immediately understood Mark’s reaction when he saw how many missed messages, phone calls and emails he had. “Bloody hell,” he murmured, though he was too numb still to feel the overwhelming crush of what it would take to read through and respond to all of them. He ignored them all, finding Mrs. Davies’s number in his contacts and dialling it.
Mark glanced at Tim and jerked his head toward the living room, and they both slipped out, presumably to give him some privacy. Alex appreciated the gesture, but given how many messages he had, he wasn’t expecting Mrs. Davies to pick up at all.
To his surprise, she did, on the third ring. “Alex,” she said, and even though she sounded like she’d been crying, there was still such warmth in her voice.
Just like Greg’s.
Alex’s throat felt tight, but he forced himself to say, “Hi Mrs. Davies. I just – I wanted to check on you.”
“Pauline, love,” she corrected gently. “After all this time, I think you can call me by my Christian name.” She paused before asking, “Are you all right?”
“Yes, fine,” Alex said automatically, changing the subject quickly. “I wanted to – to discuss the arrangements. See what I could help with.”
Twenty minutes later, they hadn’t really come up with much, more just establishing that Alex would be in touch more in the next few days to hammer out details. She must’ve asked about eighteen times in eighteen different ways if Alex was all right, but he honestly didn’t know how to answer that question.
What did that even look like in a world in which Greg was dead?
At some point during the conversation, he had wandered back into the bedroom, and that was where he ended, perched on the side of his bed, staring down at his phone, at the ever growing red bubbles above his SMS and email icons, and that was without even looking at WhatsApp or his voicemail.
He didn’t look up when he heard Mark and Tim enter the room, or even when he felt them sit down, one on either side of him. He felt something cold on his hand and glanced over to see Tim holding out a beer for him, and he he took it automatically. “Bit early still,” Tim said, “but I don't think anyone will judge.”
Alex nodded in thanks, taking a long pull from the bottle as silence settled around the three of them once more. Then, just when the silence was almost suffocating, Mark cleared his throat. “Key to start?” he said.
On his right, he could feel Tim shake his head, but honestly, having to think about nothing more than categories and people sounded absolutely perfect. It would help centre him at the very least, and he took a deep breath and nodded. “Key to start,” he repeated, his voice low.
Tim exhaled sharply and shrugged. “Fine,” he said. “Penelope Pitstop.” Alex didn’t quite manage a laugh, but it was close. “No more people who, when you think about it, have a noun as either their Christian or surnames.”
“Name another,” Alex said automatically.
“Donald Duck.”
Despite everything, Alex cracked a smile for the first time all day. “Don’t mind that,” Mark said. “Right, erm, Barack Obama. No more people who, when you think about it, are left-handed.”
Alex just shook his head. “Enya,” he said decisively. “No more mononyms.”
Play continued from there, and Alex felt himself relax, just slightly, at the familiar cadence and overused jokes, his mind drifting to something peaceful, some place where none of this was happening, some place where he had a modicum of control and could laugh and joke and not feel like someone had gouged a hole in his chest.
He should’ve known it wouldn’t last.
He was struggling with Mark’s latest category, something about syllables that honestly didn’t make sense and asking him to name another hadn’t clarified much, when one name popped in his mind. One name that tore through the veneer of normalcy, that shredded the tiny bit of peace he’d been building.
“Greg Davies,” he choked out. “No more dead.”
And then he lost it, unable to hold it together for a moment longer. Great, wracking sobs shook his entire body and he covered his face with both hands, dropping his thankfully mostly-empty bottle.
He felt one of them put their arm around his shoulders, heard both of them saying something but he couldn’t make out what it was over the sound of his own crying. He wept brokenly, without a single coherent thought beyond pain and loss and something quite a bit like the worst heartbreak he’d ever felt.
He cried until he had no tears left, and somehow managed to keep going, crying so hard that he thought he might be sick.
After what felt like hours but was probably only minutes, someone pressed a glass into his hand and he realised, belatedly, that his sobs had crossed into hysterics and he was well on the verge of hyperventilating. “Take a sip, go on,” Tim said. “Come on, don’t make us force you.”
Alex took a quick sip of water and somehow, it did work, at least a little, enough for his weeping to slow to more sniffles than anything. “Sorry,” he whispered, and Tim rolled his eyes, squeezing Alex’s shoulders.
“Of all the things to apologise for—”
But Alex caught sight of the front of Tim’s shirt, and he realised with something like horror that he must’ve been crying into his chest based on the wet splotches and what looked suspiciously like snot. “Oh, Jesus, I’m sorry—”
“Dunno, think it’s an improvement, really,” Mark said, rubbing his back, and Tim gave him the finger.
Alex managed a shaky laugh. “Well, it probably didn’t make it worse,” he agreed hoarsely.
Tim scowled. “Oi, is it gang up on Key o’clock?” he asked, indignant.
Alex straightened, reaching up to swipe half-heartedly at his cheeks with the heel of his hand. “Sorry for disrupting the game,” he said.
“Will you stop apologising?” Tim asked with a sigh, while Mark just nudged him gently with his shoulder as he told him, “Not sure we’ve had a mid game meltdown before.”
“Besides, Watto was going to challenge anyway,” Tim added.
Mark glared at him. “Oh, thanks Timmy.”
Alex glanced at him. “Were you?”
Mark shrugged, a little uncomfortably. “Yeah, well, we said no more people who had definitely held a cellphone.”
“Oh.” Alex considered it for a moment. “I may have misunderstood the category.”
“It’s all right,” Mark told him. “It’s fiddly, innit.”
“Hard, yeah,” Tim said with a nod.
Alex nodded as well. “Yeah,” he said softly. “It is hard.”
Understatement of his entire lifetime, that.
By the time Rachel got home the next day, Alex had mostly pulled himself together. The same couldn’t be said of the house – how Mark and Tim managed to leave that much damage in just over 24 hours’ time was something of a modern miracle – but luckily, Rachel didn’t even say anything about it, just crossing to Alex to give him a hug. “Hanging in there?” she asked.
He nodded. “Something like that,” he told her. “Sorry for, er—”
“Don’t,” she said, waving a dismissive hand. “I get it.”
He was glad she did. He just wasn’t sure he did.
Obviously Greg was – had been – a great friend, but Alex had lost other friends over the years and it had never felt like this.
He had never felt like this.
Even just standing in his kitchen trying to chat with his wife felt like someone was ripping his lungs from his chest.
He forced himself to focus on his breathing for a long moment before managing, in a tone more wooden than casual, “I spoke to Pauline.”
Rachel blinked at him before realisation hit. “Greg’s mum.”
She didn’t pitch it as a question but Alex still nodded. “Yeah,” he said, his voice hoarse, and he cleared his throat before continuing, “I offered to help plan the, er, the funeral.”
For a long moment, she didn’t say anything, though she was biting her lip the way she did when she really wanted to but felt she shouldn’t. “That’s a kind offer.”
Alex just shrugged. “Feels like the least I can do.”
“So what are you thinking?” Rachel asked, leaning against the kitchen counter.
The question took him aback, though he wasn’t sure why it should. “Oh, er, not sure yet,” he said, fiddling with the hem of his Snoopy jumper. “The– they’re still doing a formal inquiry into what happened. And why—”
He couldn’t choke the words ‘why Greg is dead’ out, and Rachel reached for his hand.
He flinched, and her hand dropped to her side.
“Are you all right?” she asked, after a long moment.
Alex jerked a nod on instinct alone. “Yeah, fine,” he said. He scratched his beard before telling her, “Erm, so it’ll be next week sometime. His mum asked me to take a few days and think about what he might like.”
His breath caught in his throat at the thought, and something flickered in Rachel’s expression. “Surely someone else—”
“Yeah, probably,” he agreed, in a distracted sort of way. “I mean, we didn’t exactly, erm, discuss it.” He paused, staring out the window. “Maybe one of his older friends – better friends.”
Rachel shook her head. “I think you two were plenty good friends, in the end,” she said quietly.
Alex just shrugged. “At least someone who knew him better,” he said. “There was so much that we, we never—”
Again he broke off, but this time Rachel didn’t try to reach for him. “Why don’t you call someone?” she suggested. “One of his old friends, perhaps someone you both knew?”
“Oh, I couldn’t,” Alex said, eyes widening at the thought. “They’re—” If he was feeling this way, certainly Greg’s other friends, those who had known him better, loved him— He felt his chest clench painfully, and he stared down at the ground, waiting for the blur of tears to dissipate. “I couldn’t intrude,” he whispered finally.
Now Rachel did reach for his hand again, and this time, he let her take it. “Not certain anyone would see it as an intrusion,” she said quietly.
Alex shrugged again, too tired to disagree. “I’ll be fine,” he said instead. “I’ll think of something.”
Rachel pursed her lips but didn’t try to argue either. “Sure,” she said instead. “I know you will be.”
But as Alex went down to his shed to try to do just that, even just the tenuous concept of planning Greg’s funeral, or memorial, or whatever, left Alex’s throat tight, silent sobs threatening to punch through his chest like flames.
He spent the rest of the afternoon and most of the following morning in there, with absolutely nothing to show for it, still dodging phone calls and messages from more people than he thought he’d ever even met, all seeming to want to offer him their condolences, as though he was the person most in need of comfort in all of this.
It had to have been because of Taskmaster, he thought to himself, and that made it even worse, knowing that they all thought he was important solely because of a years-long act.
Still, when he trudged back up to the house at midday, he wasn’t surprised when Rachel told him, “You’ve got a phone call.”
“I know, I’ll call them back, I—”
But she ignored his protests, handing him the phone and walking back to the kitchen. Alex took a deep breath before saying tonelessly into the phone, “Hello?”
“Alex?”
It was a woman’s voice, one he didn’t immediately place, and he frowned. “Yes?”
“This is Sian Harries.”
Sian Harries. Of course, she had worked with Greg, and she was married to another friend of Greg’s, Rhod Gilbert. Didn’t explain why she was calling him, though. He blinked, equal parts surprised and confused. “Oh,” he said. “How are you?”
She managed a light laugh. “Well, it’s early days yet,” she said bracingly. “How are you doing?”
“I’m—”
Alex couldn’t seem to come up with any answer, and she laughed again, gentler this time. “Looking for a good way to answer that question?” she suggested.
Alex huffed an attempt at a laugh. “Something like that.”
“Listen,” she said, her tone turning brisk, “I am sorry for calling but I need your help.”
“My help?” Alex repeated, surprised.
“Yeah. It’s about Rhod.”
Driving to Wales hadn’t been on Alex’s todo list, but then again, it wasn’t like he had anything better to do besides sit and stare and try not to lose it entirely. And thankfully, he could do that just as easily behind the steering wheel of a car if he really wanted.
Sian greeted him with a soft smile and a kiss on his cheek. “Thanks for coming,” she said, closing the door after him. “I’m sorry that I couldn’t think of anyone else to call.”
Alex scratched the side of his neck. “Right,” he said. “You do know that, er, Rhod and I aren’t really close?”
Sian’s eyes flickered to his bum and back up again and Alex felt himself flush. “Don’t know that I’d say that, actually, given what you let him put you through,” she said mildly. “But he needs someone to snap him out of this, and I figured you’re one of the only people who’s ever been able to get Rhod to do something he doesn’t want to do.”
“Not so sure that was me,” Alex said. “But I’m happy to try, I suppose.”
Sian just nodded and led him to the closed bedroom door. “I’m just going to pop out for a bit,” she told him in an undertone, squeezing his arm. “I’ll be back.”
And then she was gone, and Alex was left staring at a closed bedroom door in Wales with absolutely no idea of how or why he’d agreed to this. For lack of any better options, he knocked, a little hesitantly. “Rhod?” he called, his voice coming out slightly higher pitched than normal. “It’s, er, Alex. Alex Horne.” He winced before adding, with just a hint of desperation, “May I come in?”
Predictably, he got no answer, and he sighed, leaning in to rest his forehead against the door for a moment. But as much as he wanted to slink back to his car, for the first time since he’d gotten the news, Alex didn’t feel entirely useless. That alone was enough for him to straighten, square his shoulders, and tell Rhod through the door, “Right, for today and today only, I'm taking your silence as agreement.”
He twisted the doorknob, half-expecting it to be locked, and so almost fell through when it swung open. He righted himself quickly, but not quickly enough, as he heard a low, choking sound to his left that sounded like a strangled laugh. “Fuck off for making me laugh,” Rhod said, his laugh becoming a cough.
“Hello, Rhod,” Alex said, looking Rhod over. He looked genuinely awful, which Alex supposed over two days of staying holed up in a room without sleeping, eating or showering would do to a person. “Sian called. She’s worried about you.”
Rhod sighed, scrubbing a hand across his face. “Told her not to be,” he said roughly.
Alex gave a neutral sort of hum as he perched on the edge of the bed. “Pretty sure this didn’t help your case,” he said, giving a vague sort of wave in Rhod’s direction.
“Probably not,” Rhod agreed. “I just…”
He trailed off and Alex nodded slowly. He certainly understood the impulse to hide in his bed and never emerge again. And if he didn’t have Rachel and the kids and Mrs. Davies and the funeral and Taskmaster and Avalon and— Well, everything else to worry about, he might even have given into it.
“Not going to make it easier, though,” he said to Rhod. “Just going to make it feel longer.” Rhod just shook his head, and Alex sighed. “How about this,” he said. “Why don’t you have a shower, I’ll make some tea, and after that, if you still want to stay in here, I’ll let you get back to it.”
Rhod considered it for a moment. “Yeah, all right,” he said finally, sitting upright.
He swung his legs over the edge of the bed, the duvet falling away and Alex let out a little yelp when he realised that Rhod wasn’t wearing any pants. “Some warning would be nice,” he said, staring determinedly at the opposite wall.
“Sorry,” Rhod said, though he didn’t remotely sound it, nor did he made any attempt to cover himself up. “Nothing you’ve not seen before.”
Alex made a face. “Think you’ve mostly seen mine, not the other way round.”
Rhod barked what might have almost been a laugh. “Yeah, fair play.” He paused before nodding slowly. “Ah, I see now why Sian called you.”
“What’s that?”
Rhod just shrugged. “I mean, it’s not like we’re great mates,” he pointed out.
Which was fair, but Alex hadn’t thought there had been some kind of ulterior motive. “I suppose not. Though as established, you’ve certainly seen more of me than some of my friends.” He paused, chancing a glance back at Rhod and immediately regretting it. “Is that why you think Sian called me? Would the sight of my bare arse cheer you up?”
Rhod huffed another not-quite-laugh. “Believe it or not, no. On either front.” He stood and Alex stared at the wall like it was the most fascinating thing he’d ever seen in his life. “She called because it’s you, and she knows I wouldn’t feel embarrassed to be in this state with you.”
“Because you’ve seen my, erm—”
Rhod grinned and clapped him on the shoulder. “Hard to feel embarrassed after that, mate.”
“Speak for yourself,” Alex mumbled, waiting for Rhod to leave the room before finally turning away from the wall.
But as Rhod shuffled off to shower and Alex spent the next ten minutes trying to permanently rid himself of that image while simultaneously trying to figure out what absolutely illogical place Sian and Rhod stashed their tea, he couldn’t help but return to what Rhod had said, and about ulterior motives.
And timing a little too coincidental to be just that.
“I have my own theory for why Sian called,” he said when Rhod joined him in the kitchen, mercifully clothed.
“Go on,” Rhod said, taking a sip of tea.
Alex took a deep breath. “Well it goes along with your theory, really. I think my wife told her to call.”
Rhod blinked. “Do your wife and mine even know each other?” he asked.
Alex shrugged. “I believe there’s an entire group chat for partners of Taskmaster contestants, and they were gracious enough to let Rachel join.”
“Christ, that’s a scary thought,” Rhod muttered.
“Couldn’t agree more,” Alex agreed. “Anyway, she—” He broke off, realising he needed to back up a little further. “Well, I’ve offered to help Mrs., erm, that is, Pauline—”
Rhod’s head snapped up. “Greg’s mum?” he asked, his brow furrowing, and when Alex nodded, Rhod’s eyes suddenly widened. “Oh, fuck. Yeah, Christ, I didn’t even think—” He broke off, frustration, assumedly at himself, darkening his expression. “Fuck!”
“It’s ok,” Alex said hurriedly. “She understands. She was surprised I called, honestly, and I wasn’t even…” He trailed off, not sure how to describe what Rhod had been to Greg, let alone what he himself had been. “Anyway, er, I said I’d helped with the arrangements, but then I realised I have no clue what he would want. So Rachel wanted me to ring one of Greg’s, erm, better friends. Or, er, older friends, at least.”
He only broke off from his rambling because Rhod turned his glare on him. “Are you calling me old?”
Alex winced. “No, I didn’t mean—”
“I feel old,” Rhod muttered, a darkness similar to what Alex imagined had confined him to his bed for the past two days descending without warning. “Fucking ancient. We’re the same age, we should’ve had more—”
He broke off, raising a trembling hand to his face, and Alex bit his lip, not sure what to say, if anything. After a long moment, Rhod lowered his hand, his expression more even, though his eyes were sad. “Sorry,” he said. “Go on.”
“Right,” Alex said, before continuing, a little weakly, “Only I didn’t want to ring anyone, so I think Rachel called Sian, and, well, two birds, one stone.”
It wasn’t the strongest ending but Rhod nodded like he followed where Alex had been headed. “So you don’t mind asking me for hints on how to plan Greg’s funeral since you’re already here and it’s not an imposition then?”
Alex nodded. “Something like that.”
Rhod nodded as well, something contemplative in his expression. “They should’ve put our wives in charge of the Remain vote, they’d’ve stopped Brexit single handedly.”
“Double handedly, I think,” Alex said. “They have two hands between them. Four, really, when you think about it.”
Rhod just gave him a look. “Doesn’t hit the same when Greg’s not here to fake irritation at it,” he said. His expression tightened at the mention of Greg and he looked away from Alex, tracing a finger over the woodgrain of the table. Then, abruptly, he said, “He didn’t want to be buried. He said– he said they’d have to custom make a coffin, cos of his height, and that’d be a waste of money. And then he’d be worried the whole time that someone would drop him.”
Alex’s chest felt suddenly too small. “That does sound like Greg.”
“He also said if there was a way he could avoid his own funeral, he’d take it.”
If only that was an option for any of them. Alex counted his breathing for a few seconds before asking, carefully, “What do you think he would want?”
Rhod just shrugged. “Dunno,” he muttered before crossing his arms in front of his chest, staring down at the table. “He’d want us all to be laughing, I can tell you that much,” he said finally. “Cracking jokes, telling stories…”
Alex nodded slowly. “Yeah,” he said, an idea slowly forming. “Yeah, he would, wouldn’t he. Something small in Wem for his family, but then an evening together in London for—”
“For the rest of his family,” Rhod finished.
Alex’s eyes stung and he swallowed, hard. “Yeah. Big family.”
A ghost of a smile flit across Rhod’s face. “Huge. But then so is he. Was he.” His face crumpled at the correction. “Fuck.”
He sat there with his eyes closed and Alex hesitated before asking, “You all right?”
“No,” Rhod said, eyes still closed. “We can get a bunch of Greg’s friends to say something, tell some stories, what have you. Call Ed, see if he’d be willing to emcee.”
“Ed Gamble?” Alex asked, confused by the sudden shift from despair to party planning.
Rhod nodded, finally opening his eyes again. “He’s like you, needs to feel like he’s doing something.” Alex blinked, surprised by Rhod’s perceptiveness. “I’d say you should do it but I don’t think you’re up for it.”
“I’m fine,” Alex said automatically.
But Rhod didn’t even spare him a pitying glance. “No, you’re not.”
Alex wasn’t, not by a long shot, but he wasn’t about to admit that to Rhod. “What about you?” he asked instead. “Will you say something?”
“Oh probably,” Rhod said, and Alex glanced at him, surprised. Rhod just shrugged. “Only way I’ll get through it – panicking about speaking instead of everything else.”
Well, there was that. “Fair play.”
Rhod cleared his throat. “Speaking of getting through it,” he said, not quite meeting Alex’s eyes, “you don’t have to hang around. I’m– well, you don’t have to stay.”
Alex stayed. They drank their tea and talked about plans for Greg’s memorial, if that was the right word for it, and it only took about an hour or so before Alex coaxed a real laugh out of Rhod, and this time without even the threat of accidental bodily harm.
By the time Sian got back, Alex felt like Rhod was in a good enough place that he didn’t need to intrude any longer. Rhod walked him to the door and Alex paused, just for a moment, glancing down at him. “Will you be all right, Rhod?”
“Wasn’t before all this,” Rhod muttered, though he didn’t quite smile. “No, I’ll manage. It just – it’s all going to be so dull.”
He said that last part like a sigh, and Alex frowned. “Sorry?”
Rhod shook his head. “It’s something Greg said,” he said, his voice hoarse. “When I told him I was sick, he— well we were both a mess, weren’t we. Crying and what not. But at the end, he just hugged me and he said—” He broke off and it took him a moment before he continued, in an absolutely awful attempt at imitating Greg’s voice, “Don’t you dare die. I can live without you, you prick, but Christ, wouldn’t that be dull.”
Rhod’s imitation skills aside, it sounded so much like Greg that Alex’s heart stuttered in his chest, and he reached out to squeeze Rhod’s arm. “He loved you,” he said, his voice thick to his own ears.
“Loved you, too,” Rhod muttered. “More than I think either of you wanted to admit.”
He didn’t say it like the well-tread joke that it certainly was, and Alex couldn’t explain why the corners of his eyes suddenly stung with tears. “Doesn’t really matter now, does it,” he managed.
Rhod just cocked his head slightly. “Doesn’t it?”
Alex didn’t have any answer to that.
But he knew he would be spending his entire drive back from Wales thinking about it.
Mrs. Davies– Pauline loved the idea he and Rhod had come up with, which meant that Alex was left to organise it. Something he was honestly relieved about – he was good at organising things, and like Rhod had so astutely noted, Alex did better when he was being useful.
Besides which, it left very little time for him to dwell on everything else.
The day of the memorial dawned bright and clear, not that Alex got to enjoy it – not that he would have been able to, anyway. He spent most of the day at the Comedy Store, which had agreed to host the gig, a generous offer given the short notice. Granted, having it at a professional venue meant there wasn’t really any set up that required Alex’s help, but he found ways to keep busy regardless.
And when the first guests started arriving, he slipped backstage to get himself ready.
Rhod hadn’t been wrong that he wasn’t remotely up to emceeing the entire event, but he knew he wouldn’t forgive himself if he didn’t find a way to say at least something. So on the off-chance he lost it again completely, he decided the best thing he could do was open the show.
He changed from his regular clothes into a variation of his Taskmaster assistant suit, albeit a significantly higher-end version, with real shoes and everything. Greg would’ve still found a way to make fun of it, of course, and it almost didn’t hurt to hear Greg’s teasing voice in his ear.
At least, until he remembered he would never hear it again.
Clutching his iPad like a lifeline, he stepped out on to the stage, blinking at the sudden brightness of the lights. His heart pounded loudly in his ears, but he forced it out of mind. This was just another performance. He could do this.
“Welcome, everyone,” he said to the crowd, picking out familiar faces throughout the room. So many people who had known Greg, had loved Greg. His throat felt tight again, and he cleared it before continuing, “As I think most of you already know, I’m Alex Horne—”
“Little Alex Horne,” someone shouted from the audience and Alex smiled on instinct alone.
“Right, sorry, Little Alex Horne,” he corrected, though the name rang hollow when Greg wasn’t the one bellowing it in his ear. “Before I turn things over to Ed Gamble to start the show proper, the Taskmaster has set one final live task for everyone here tonight. I’m going to read it out loud for you.”
He revealed the task that had been hidden by his iPad to the audience, and tore it open with a flourish, clearing his throat again before reading, “Laugh. Most laughs wins. You have until they kick us all out of here eventually. Your time starts now.”
Applause and a smattering of gentle laughter greeted that, and Alex waved before ceding the stage to Ed, letting out a breath he hadn’t even realised he’d been holding as soon as he got backstage.
He didn’t linger, heading out into the audience to squeeze in between his wife and Roisin Conaty, which actually turned out to be somewhat of a godsend. Roisin grabbed his hand as soon as he sat down and held it so tightly that he managed to swallow the sob he could feel building in his chest as he looked around at everyone who had turned up. And her laughter and tears at seemingly every story made him feel less awkward about his own.
And there certainly was plenty of laughter as the night wore on and the drinks kept flowing. Much of the laughter came from people simply recounting the ridiculous, absurd and hilarious stories that Greg had told them over the years.
It was a beautiful send-off, exactly as Greg would want to be remembered, and it went off without a hitch, which was probably how Alex would want to be remembered, in the end. The man who kept it all together.
It was what he was good at, after all.
With the memorial behind him, it was just a matter of time before he got back to it. Avalon needed an answer on how he wanted to move things forward, or if he just wanted to scrap the entire series.
Which was an insanely generous thing for them to even offer, considering how much they’d already spent on it, and which was precisely why Alex knew he couldn’t take them up on it.
But he also couldn’t go back.
He tried, the day after Greg’s memorial. Sat down in his car, turned it on, and then just sat in the drive for twenty minutes, staring blankly out the windscreen before turning the car off and heading back inside.
“What’s happened?” Rachel asked, concerned.
“Couldn’t do it,” Alex said shortly, heading to his shed.
He didn’t know how to explain it, other than to say that he’d frozen. The drive to the studio was as familiar to Alex as the drive to his parents’, but somehow, he hadn’t been able to make his foot press the pedal.
It was like he just froze, his entire body rebelling against the idea of going to the studio knowing that Greg wouldn’t be there.
And he had no explanation for why.
So if he couldn’t go back, but he couldn’t cancel the series, he had no clue where that left him other than stuck with everyone waiting on his input and for him to make an impossible decision.
He hated Greg, just a little in that moment, for leaving him here to pick up the pieces and fix everything, to have to decide just how he was going to get on in a world without him. For as much abuse as Greg had jokingly given him over the years, this was the worst thing he’d ever done, leaving Alex here like this.
And then he felt absolutely awful for blaming Greg for dying, and the whole cycle started all over again.
He sat at the kitchen table late that night – early the next morning, if he was being honest, staring down at a mug of tea that had long since gone cold, and he jumped when he felt a hand on his shoulder. “Hey,” Rachel said softly. “You all right?”
“Fine, yeah,” Alex said automatically, and Rachel frowned.
“You’re crying.”
Alex raised a hand to his face, genuinely surprised to feel wet tracks along his cheeks. He didn’t remember starting to cry, but there was no denying it, really. “Oh,” he said. “Sorry.”
Rachel sat down next to him. “Do you even know what you’re apologising for?”
He didn’t, not really, and it took everything in him not to apologise for that, too. “All of it, I suppose,” he said instead.
“All of what?” she asked.
Alex jerked a shrug. “I just– I know that I’m letting everyone down and I—” He tried to tamp down the ache that had been building in him over the past week and a half, but he couldn’t seem to manage it this time. “It hurts,” he choked out, crossing his arms in front of his chest as if he might be able to physically hold himself together, “how much I miss him, and I don’t know how I’m supposed to move forward when I can’t even breathe, and—” Mentally, it was like he finally found the off valve, just managing to dam the flood that threatened to burst out if he let it. “I don’t know why I feel this way. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t apologise,” Rachel said sharply, and Alex glanced at her, surprised by the sudden heat in her voice. She sighed and reached out to squeeze his arm gently. “Sorry, I just—” She broke off, clearly looking for the right words to say before shaking her head. “You feel this way because you loved him.” She said it simply, plainly, like stating a fact for a very young child. “Love him, still. More than just as colleagues, more than just as friends. And it breaks my heart to hear you apologise for that.”
Hearing it as a joke from all quarters for the past several years didn’t prepare Alex for hearing the same from his wife, and he flinched. “I don’t—”
Rachel’s hand on his arm tightened. “Listen to me,” she said firmly, waiting until he met her eyes before continuing, in a slightly softer tone, “You have never once in 25 years given me a reason to doubt that you love me. But that doesn’t mean that you don’t also love him.”
“I—”
The immediate, instinctive denial died in his throat, suffocated by the weight of the realisation that maybe it was time to stop pretending like it was a joke.
Because he did. Because this thing between him and Greg may have started with the show but went so far beyond it now, creeping into every aspect of his life until it became as second nature as breathing, until the loss of it felt like the loss of a part of himself he didn’t even know he could miss, let alone find a way to live without.
He had lost friends before, but what he had missed all along in trying to understand why this didn’t feel like any of those times was that Greg hadn’t been just a friend.
Doesn’t matter now, he’d told Rhod about his feelings, and he didn’t know if he’d ever been so wrong. Of course it mattered. It mattered because it was the explanation he’d been searching for this entire time, because the only other person he’d felt like this about was sitting across from him, tears shining in her own eyes as she squeezed his hand.
“You love him,” Rachel repeated, and Alex took a deep, shuddering breath.
“I love him,” he said, and each word hurt more than he ever thought was possible, but it was a different kind of hurt now that he was at least acknowledging it. Cleaner, somehow, like something that could one day heal instead of just fester and rot. “I– I love him.” A little easier, that time, though it didn’t hurt any less. He looked at her, blinking through the tears he didn’t even bother trying to stem. “I don’t want to. I mean, I love you, I love the kids, and I don’t—”
She shook her head. “I know.”
Alex swallowed and reached up to wipe his tears from where they were dripping off the tip of his nose. “I don’t know how to do this without him,” he admitted.
“The show?”
He shook his head. “Any of it.”
Rachel just sighed. “I think you have to just figure it out one day at a time,” she said softly.
“I don’t know if I can.”
“I don’t know that you have a choice.” She squeezed his hand once more before standing, bending down to kiss the top of his head, smoothing her hand through his hair. “Whatever you need, however long it takes, I’m here,” she told him. “And when that’s not enough, everyone who also loves Greg is here for you, too.”
She patted his shoulder and turned to leave but he reached up to grab her hand, holding her in place. “I love you,” he told her, and she smiled at him.
“I know,” she said. “I love you too.” She squeezed his hand once more before letting go. “Come to bed soon.”
Alex stood. “I’ll come now,” he told her.
Part of him wanted to stay at the kitchen table, to spend more time with this revelation, to think through what it meant, and what it didn’t mean, and everything in between. But there would be time for that later. Right now, all he wanted to do was lie next to his wife wrapped in their blanket and the knowledge that, whatever else it might mean, he was lucky beyond belief to be surrounded by more love than he had thought was possible.
Alex was not generally an indecisive person, nor was he someone who needed to crowdsource his ideas or plans. But every now and then, when he had a major decision to make, it helped to present it to his closest friends first. Not to change his mind, but to make sure he had every argument necessary in place.
To that end, he’d invited Tim and Mark over. Better to get two of his more vocal friends onboard before anyone else.
Alex fiddled with the cuffs of his jumper as he sat across from them at the kitchen table, an untouched beer in front of him. “I think I’ve made a decision,” he said, his hesitancy undermining how resolved he’d felt about this up until this very moment. “About the show, I mean.”
Mark and Tim glanced at each other before looking back at him. “What have you decided?” Tim asked, and Mark gave him a look.
“You don’t have to have decided anything yet,” he started, a note of warning in his voice, but Alex shook his head.
“No, I know, but the production’s somewhat stalled and there are decisions that do need to be made.” He paused and took a deep breath before telling them, “I don’t think I’m going to go back. To the show, I mean.”
Tim didn’t look surprised as he took a swig of his own beer, but Alex sensed something like disappointment in the look on his face. Mark just leaned forward, his brow furrowed. “I know that you joke that Greg sets the tasks, but we all know that it’s you. It’s your show.” He paused, searching Alex’s expression for a moment before adding, “He wouldn’t want you to give this up for him.“
Alex just shook his head. “I’m not,” he said, more firmly than before. “But at some point I stopped writing the tasks and the jokes for the audience and started writing them for Greg, to make him laugh, and I don’t think—” He broke off, the now too familiar pain licking at his throat. “I can’t do that for someone else.” He shrugged, reaching for his beer but not drinking from it, picking at the label instead. “I’m still going to EP, and I’ll probably still help with the tasks, just not as the Taskmaster’s assistant. Jeremy and Paul from Taskmaster New Zealand are going to step in to finish off this series, and then we’ll work on finding a permanent replacement.”
The latter part had been determined before Alex had decided that his hiatus from the show would be permanent. It was the easiest solution for finishing the current season that didn’t require the studios spending gobs of money, and it meant Alex could sleep at night without worrying about the hundreds of people the show employed getting laid off with no notice.
Still, neither Tim nor Mark looked convinced. “If you’re sure,” Tim said coolly, with a heavy implication that he knew Alex wasn’t.
Alex shrugged. “I’m not sure of anything,” he said honestly, “except that – it was ours. Not my show, ours. I made it for him, and he made it for me.” He’d never heard it from the man’s mouth, of course, but he knew it was true as soon as he said it. “So it needs to be someone else’s for a while, or else I’d still be making it for him.”
“Mate, whoever takes over will be making it for him,” Tim said, but Mark just shook his head slowly.
“Not the same though, is it.”
It wasn’t, and that was an easy way into the other thing that Alex needed to tell them, not because he owed them an explanation, but because he wanted them to understand. “I loved him.”
He’d held the words inside himself for so long that he felt like it should have been a cataclysmic event breathing it into the universe for anyone but Rachel to hear, but neither of their expressions so much as flickered. “Yeah, we know,” Mark said.
Alex shook his head, frustrated. “No I mean, not as a friend, or– or whatever,” he said, impatient with them for not understanding. “I loved him. Love him.”
“Yeah, mate,” Tim said quietly. “We know.”
Oh.
Well wasn’t that a revelation in its own right.
Mark took a sip of wine before asking, somewhat gently, “So what are you going to do now?”
Alex shook his head again, still trying to get his mind around the fact that his best friends had apparently put all the pieces together before he did. “I haven’t got a clue,” he said honestly. “Well, Rhod’s asked me to help out with a tribute show – Channel 4 wants to do a fundraiser of some kind, probably as a lead in to the next series, but he’s not sure he can find the humour in it yet.”
“And you are?” Tim asked.
“No,” Alex said bracingly. “But together we might have better luck. And then after that, who knows. Between the Horne Section and as much backlogged admin as I’ve got, I’ll probably find a way to stay busy.”
Tim nodded slowly. “Well if you’ve got time on your hands, we can always do a few more sets of Jockeys.”
“Wouldn’t mind that,” Mark said. “Maybe give Timmy a chance to actually win some money.”
“Oh fuck off,” Tim said, but without any real heat.
Mark ignored him, instead telling Alex, sincerely, “But whatever you need, you know we’re here.”
“I know,” Alex said. Because he did.
And maybe, between them, and Rachel, and everyone else, he might just figure out a way to get through this.
It took Alex two months, six days, seven hours and approximately 38 seconds after the phone call before he finally walked through the doors at Pinewood Studios again, and as soon as he did, he knew he would’ve preferred to wait at least twice as long.
Every day – no, that was a lie, and he was trying not to lie to himself anymore, not about this. But most days were incrementally better than the one that preceded it as he worked to figure out some kind of new normal. Stepping through those doors, though, brought it all back, sharp and clear and raw.
He took a deep, steadying breath, and luckily, his feet still knew their way, leading him down the hallway. He was meeting with the Andys to discuss some things that they’d all mutually agreed were easier to go over in person, though both had offered numerous times to come round to Alex’s or meet for coffee or what have you.
But Alex knew he would have to do this eventually – it was still his name on the show, after all, ‘devised and written by’ – and besides, what he had told Rhod was still true. Waiting wouldn’t make it any easier, it would just make it feel longer.
He realised abruptly that he had stopped paying attention, that he had wandered well past the offices where he was meant to meet the Andys, had gotten all the way to the stage door, and he hesitated for only a moment before pushing the door open.
Since it was between series, he hadn’t expected much – the stage did get used for other things, so it wasn't like they left the Taskmaster set up permanently. But they must have been filming some promo shots or something, because it looked exactly as they had left it that day two months ago, and the breath caught in his throat at the hauntingly familiar gold and red.
He drifted through the set like a ghost, brushing his fingers against the edge of Greg’s throne, tempted for half a second to sit in it. He had before, of course, normally just to irritate Greg.
A barely stifled giggle escaped him at the memory of Greg’s mock-furious reaction the last time he had seen him do that, followed almost immediately by the hollow ache that always seemed to accompany his laughter these days.
So much of Greg – so much of him and Greg – was caught up in their shared laughter, and that ache felt amplified in this space. All the laughter, the memories, the sheer joy they had shared in this place – he could only hope that one day, it wouldn’t hurt like this to think about it, to think about him.
He stood on the silent stage until his breath felt steady once more, and he reached up automatically to brush the tears from his cheeks, exhaling just a little shakily as he looked around once more.
Greg was gone, but Greg was here, like a dust mote spinning under the lights, tied up forever with Alex’s best memories of this place and all they had built together. And he knew, in some deep part of himself, that he was lucky beyond words, that thanks to the show, there would always be a version of them together. Almost twenty series’ worth of Greg’s laughter mere inches from him, and all he had to do was pull it up on YouTube.
It was a gift, and one he might even feel strong enough to revisit at some point.
But for now, he took one last look at the set, taking another shaky breath, his eyes fluttering closed as a memory popped to mind, unbidden.
“Come here,” Greg ordered, holding out his arm, and Alex broke off his own conversation with Andy to shuffle forward, his brow furrowed.
“What—” he started, but Greg just closed his arms around him in a hug, turning them both to smirk smugly at who he had been talking to during a break between takes.
“See?” he said. “This is why I call him Little Alex Horne. He is little. To me.”
Alex flushed, just a tinge of pink. “Right,” he said, squirming slightly. “I’ll just—”
But Greg didn’t relinquish his grip, and Alex stopped his ineffectual movements. “Greg,” he said, with a hint of annoyance. “You will have to let go of me eventually.”
“Not if I can help it,” Greg said. “Besides, you looked stressed. Figured this can’t hurt.”
Well, that was certainly true, and Alex felt himself relax, just a little. “No, I suppose not,” he said, tilting his head back to give Greg a small smile. “Thanks.”
“Yeah, ‘course,” Greg said evenly. “I’ve got you.”
Alex knew he was crying again, but he didn’t even bother trying to stop them this time. That had been their last day of filming. He had forgotten – or maybe he just hadn’t been ready to remember.
He had spent the last two months living with the fact that he had never gotten to tell Greg that he had loved him, which was a different kind of pain in and of itself. But as he combed back through his memory of a thousand little moments just like that one, he wondered if maybe he had after all, in all the ways that mattered.
Alex wasn’t a betting man, but he bet, as he turned to leave, to finally head to the office to meet with the Andys, that if he found a way one day to think about it for long enough, he might just find a memory of Greg where he’d known, just as surely as Alex did now.
And maybe one day he’d be ready to remember that, too.