#task!

Michael is incredibly sensitive about touch. He’s not entirely sure where it came from but he knows it started before his father started hitting him. Not that that helped. He find physical contact to be an incredibly personal and intimate thing and does not share it likely. So anytime he does so, it is incredibly special. 

PDA is very uncommon for Michael so when photos started showing him holding hands with Parker, the press knew it was a big deal. People hardly even see him hugging or being close to his sister, even though he was famously protective. That’s what started the rumors of him being unaffectionate. Cold. The opposite is truth, Michael is merely private. He saves his hugs and shoulder squeezes for when he’s alone with someone. 

When Michael wants to convey support or comfort he will grab someone’s hand and squeeze. His grip is always firm but never domineering. Michael likes to leave space for other people to be, he knows he has power and tries not to overwhelm people, he wants people to have the space he never had. 

Because Michael is so reluctant to touch and be touch he is also touch starved meaning then when you touch him he’ll lean into it. He does this mostly with Parker, leaning into touch and sinking into being cuddled like a man taking a drink of water after wandering in the desert. 

After graduating university, Michael needed a place to live. He couldn’t stay in the dorms anymore but he also really didn’t want to go back to the palace. He tried to live in a city for a while, thinking he would like a small Dublin apartment but it didn’t fit him. Instead, Michael gave into an impulse and looked for a country house, hoping to go for the reclusive Gothic/Victorian aesthetic. Instead he found a different though very fitting aesthetic: repressed Austen hero. 

The Seafield House is north of Dublin and sits on the water outside a small seafaring town. He purchased the house with 80 acres of land but has given much of it to be a nature preserve and local community space. He had have water access though and goes sailing in his free time. Also he has some sheep. They are actually part of a local community farm and garden that feeds and also educates the community but the sheep are his personally and he’s very fond. 

While it’s not necessarily his style, Michael had the house restored and uses mostly antique furniture. He liked living like he’s a book character, complete with long evenings reading by the fire and occasionally jumping into the water with his clothes on when he needs to get his shit together (read when he came home from DC after meeting Parker). Really, he just wants to be Mr Darcy and also marry Mr Darcy. Can we blame him? 

The house has 9 bedrooms, one which belongs to Aisling of course should she choice to visit and one which he turned into an office which is the most modern room in the house as it is mostly computer screens.