02-Jul-2000
Hey, look everyone, it's still alive!!!
Duo ::pokes the half-dead ficcie:: Ewww
NEwayz, here's the next installment. Only 2 or so to go before it all ends! Enjoy!
C&C requested, as usual ^____^
Disclaimer: If I owned the Gboys, d'you think I'd live in this crappy apartment of mine?? Right. No $ here.
Warnings: sorta AU, probably OOC abound. Angst, shounen-ai. I hope it's not too confusing because it alternates between Heero's and Rowan's POVs (sorta), so some scenes will be repeated twice with a slightly different take.
Several days after his strange dream found Rowan completely immersed into his new job. He was busy all day, practically from dawn till dusk, and the degree of exhaustion that he drove himself to prevented his thoughts from coming back to the experience.
In fact, Rowan totally forgot about it. The memories resurfaced some time later, when Rowan began to feel like he was being watched whenever he was at home. Every once in a while he would get a tingling sensation between his shoulder blades, as if someone were staring at him. First the boy attributed these peculiar feelings to his overactive imagination.
However, as days went by and he still felt like someone was spying on him, Rowan began to think that either he was going insane, or there was something going on here. Sometimes the teenager could swear there was someone in the room besides him, but of course, whenever he turned around, there was no one there. This odd situation was getting on Rowan's nerves.
He was an utter materialist and didn't believe in any of supernatural stuff; therefore, he sought a rational explanation for the spooky goings-on. Failing in that, he was becoming irritated.
The chain of weird sensations culminated rather abruptly one quiet evening when Rowan was sitting in the windowsill watching the sunset. Suddenly, the hairs on the back of his neck pricked up, indicating the presence of a "supernatural" being. Rowan tried to ignore the feeling for a while but was unsuccessful. He was annoyed and unnerved. Feeling like an idiot, he decided to try to talk to whoever was in the room. Odds were 99 to 100 that the boy would get an answer. Rowan tried anyway.
Heero had been prowling the house ever since the incident a few weeks previously. He had been intrigued and decided to find out more about this mysterious new tenant before actually confronting him. He followed the boy around, watching him, trying to decipher his character, his personality. In spite of all the stalking, Heero didn't get very far. The boy, in fact, reminded Heero of the way he had been so many years ago. Reserved, quiet, almost wholly absorbed in his responsibilities. Quite a bit of time passed since Rowan moved in and still Heero knew next to nothing about him. He was growing more and more curious and tonight he found his quarry sitting in the window, watching the setting sun. He was surprised to see the expression on the teenager's face. It was an expression of utter loneliness, desolation and deep sadness. It was the first time Heero saw Rowan allow his emotions to be displayed openly and, quite simply, he was shaken. He came a little closer to study the boy's features. Then, suddenly...
"I know you're here," Rowan stated calmly, without turning around.
Heero didn't know what was happening... ordinary humans couldn't see (or feel) ghosts. At least in normal circumstances. This teenager, however, clearly was anything but ordinary. Heero still remembered the time when Rowan had sensed his touch and whispered his name. And now here he was, _talking_ to him, like talking to spirits was a regular hobby for him.
"I know you've been watching me for weeks now. I guess you don't like stranger in your house, do you? I've heard what happened to people who lived here years ago. You haunted them out, didn't you?"
//...What am I supposed to say to him? Should I say anything at all?...//
Rowan couldn't understand what was going on. First he started having some bizarre flashbacks to events he'd never lived through in the first place and now he was talking to an empty room. He didn't know how he knew, but through some sixth sense Rowan _knew_ there was someone in the room besides him.
Some invisible presence. //...A ghost? Nonsense, I don't believe in ghosts, or any of this otherworldly crap!..// Nevertheless, the stories and rumors he'd been hearing since he'd come to live here, flooded into Rowan's mind again. //...Bullshit. There's no one here and you know it. You're just freaking yourself out. // Well, if there were in fact a ghost in the house, Rowan would show it he was aware of it.
The teenager refused to be intimidated. So he spoke, feeling more than slightly foolish inside and clearly did not expect a reply of any kind. So when a voice spoke up behind him, Rowan nearly jumped out of his skin.
"This is my house, after all," the voice was slightly nasal, and sounded a bit hoarse... as if it hadn't been used for a long time. A fair guess considering the circumstances, Rowan thought sarcastically once he regained his wits. After he calmed down, however, the boy became very angry about the whole affair. This... this _being_ had watched him for the past several weeks, watched his every action, spied on him! Well, this was Rowan's house now and he didn't give a damn about some silly ghost's sentiments.
"Are you planning to get rid of me like you did others? Well, guess what. I don't believe in ghosts or nay sort of religious and supernatural crap! So, as far as I'm concerned you don't exist, buddy. You can just go take a hike. I don't give a rat's ass if you like me living here or not. It's my house now and you won't chase me out of it. I'm here to stay, whether you like it or not."
"Hn."
Rowan had been facing away from the ghost up until now. When he heard his opponent's contemptuous grunt, he whirled around. He didn't see anyone of course, but he could feel the spirit's presence still. His confusion must have shown on his face for he heard the ghost chuckle softly, which made the teenager even more infuriated. At the same time, Rowan realized that telling his unwelcome housemate to get lost wouldn't necessarily make him do so. So he tried again.
"Look, let's just get some ground rules down, OK? I don' t bother you, you don't mess with me. I won't try to change this place excessively, if that's what you're afraid of. In exchange, you won't spy on me and get into my business. Sound fair?"
"Quite."
"Fine. Now get lost."
Even as Rowan said it, he wondered whether this last command would only piss the ghost off. To his surprise, he heard the spirit acquiesce and then sensed his presence weaken and disappear as it left the room. Rowan sighed in relief. Zero to one, in his favor. The boy hoped he and the ghost would manage to co-exist comfortably. There had been something very disturbing about this incident and it wasn't simply the fact that Rowan had communicated with a wraith. No, he'd had a strange sense of déjà vu and the ghost's voice had sounded vaguely familiar, as well as his tone. Rowan couldn't shake off the feeling that he'd heard this voice before. Where, though, he couldn't remember. The teenager shook his head, trying to put the incident out of his mind for now.
To say that Heero had been surprised by the boy's behavior would be a major understatement. He had been shocked, stunned, stupefied. First, by the mere fact that the teenager had been able to _feel_ him. Second, by the way he had been addressed. It had been Heero's experience until now that people tended to panic at a simple mention of a ghost, let alone hearing their voices. This one hadn't been scared, he'd been furious. And, strangely, Heero felt pangs of regret when he had been told to get lost. It wasn't like he _liked_ this kid or anything, but he just hoped... Hoped what?
He's alive and you are dead, idiot. Just leave him alone, it'll be easier for both of you. Just let the boy live his life here in peace. Perhaps 150 years of loneliness had been a bit too much for Heero and he just longed for some companionship, but, as he lurked in the dark rooms, he thought that it would be wonderful to be able to trust someone again, and to be trusted. Heero felt acute disappointment when he recalled the anger in Rowan's eyes. Those eyes reminded him of Duo so much it hurt. In fact, Rowan reminded Heero of Duo more and more, and that scared him. //...Duo... Why did it have to end like that?...// And perhaps it was because in Heero's mind Rowan was becoming more and more like Duo that Heero was so disheartened by Rowan's rejection.
Rowan couldn't believe what had just transpired. He was living in a freaking haunted house, for crying out loud! Part of him said that he must have smoked something and dreamed the whole thing up. There was no such thing as ghosts, or any other metaphysical beings. In his 18 years, Rowan had seen enough to know that God, even if he'd ever existed, was either dead or didn't give a damn about what happened to humans. A world where a little boy had to become a whore after his parents died, so that he wouldn't starve to death... Such a world had no God or heaven. Once you died you were worm food and that was that. Ghosts were something an old woman would tell her grandkids about, a load of crap. And Rowan's grandparents were long since dead.
On the other hand, the more rationally reasoning part of his brain accepted the fact that the bizarre conversation had really taken place. Try as Rowan might to deny it, he had a housemate. Gradually, he had to come to terms with the fact. Rowan decided that the best policy was to know your opponent, and so he set about researching the history of this place. He was sure that if he looked hard enough, somewhere he'd find a clue as to who the ghost was and why he inhabited the house. Some sixth sense also told the boy that, if he found out the origins of this strange phenomenon, he'd also discover the origins of his nightmares and weird flashbacks.
The boy started his quest by looking through the random junk that was piled up in the basement. The various people who had bought the place must have collected stuff left by the previous owners and just left it downstairs, forgetting to get rid of it. Boy, was there a lot of stuff there! Rowan was amazed at how much junk people could leave behind. Most of the things were very old, like a hundred years old or so... Only a few of them Rowan knew the uses for. He had a strange feeling, like he was going back in history as he sorted through the assortment of oddities. There were articles of clothing here, toys, pictures, a few books and letters as well. Fascinating as they were, however, none of them provided any clue as to why there was a ghost in the house. Then Rowan remembered the story told to him by the old waitress at the coffee shop when he first arrived in town. There was something about two boys who lived here after the war and died under mysterious circumstances. If he wanted answers, he'd probably find them once he found out who those original dwellers had been. The problem was finding who they were. After a few days of looking, Rowan still had nil results.
//...Wouldn't it be simpler to just ask the ghost? He hasn't done anything to me yet... Maybe he's not so bad...//
But the teenager decided to hold his ground. He wanted nothing to do with this apparition. He would figure things out and he didn't need anyone's help to do so.
Rowan's next stop after he turned the house upside down was the town's library, which had computers for public use. The boy had considered getting himself a laptop, but somehow had never gotten around to it. In any case, the library computers had access to extensive databases dating back to the war, and that suited him just fine. Rowan started coming there after work every day and spending a few hours, looking. Several days of search later, he had some of the information he'd been hunting for. The history of the house on the lake read like a bizarre fiction story and Rowan was fascinated by it.
The house and land surrounding it had comprised a small estate that had belonged to the Winner family. The name sounded vaguely familiar... the Winners had been one of the richest families on Earth and the colonies before, during, and shortly after the war. Later, the family lost some of its wealth and influence, but its descendants still kept the Winner name afloat.
The house was a gift, given by Quatre Winner to the two of his close friends. None of the articles Rowan found had any mention of who these friends had been... not even their names; no pictures, either. The only thing that Rowan knew was that they had both been boys, teenagers about Quatre's own age. They had settled in the house in AC 198... about a year after the war ended.
Rowan didn't know the nature of their relationship, but he assumed the two had been close friends if they chose to live together. A tragedy occurred a year later: an accidental death of one of the boys, who fell down the stairs and broke his neck. This was followed by the suicide of the other boy on the same day. Investigation never determined what had really happened and eventually the house was put up for sale because the Winner family didn't want it back. Too much history, Rowan thought.
Whoever bought the place sold it again only a few months later, and this was followed by passing of the property from one person to another, interspersed with a few mysterious deaths of some of the owners.
Haunted house indeed, Rowan chuckled dryly. By now he was fairly certain that the ghost that he had spoken to was one of the boys who had died all these years ago. But who had they been? Some research on Quatre Winner provided Rowan with a short list of close friends. They had all been Gundam pilots during the way. Heero Yuy, Duo Maxwell, Trowa Barton, and Chang Wufei. Rowan did a double take when he saw the name Heero. His dream came rushing back... the touches, the whispers, and the face...
For a while Rowan was so overwhelmed by his visions that he just sat there, trying to get a grip on himself. By the time he did, it was almost closing time, so the boy collected the printouts he'd made and went home. Among all the stuff waiting to be read were a couple of articles with photos in them. Those the boy was especially looking forward to perusing.
At home, Rowan grabbed a snack and settled to the printouts once again. He was too caught up in his chase to stop now. Eventually he came across a picture of who he assumed to be all five of the pilots. His breath caught in his throat when he saw the faces in the photograph... one of them with a long braid, the other with short spiky hair and cold eyes. The caption read: "...Duo Maxwell, Heero Yuy...." There were other names as well, but they meant nothing to the teenager at the moment.
His eyes stayed fixed on these two faces... faces of people who had been dead for at least a hundred and fifty years. Looking at Duo was like looking in the mirror. Rowan shuddered at the realization. This Duo guy had had a long braid of hair, while Rowan's was more like his partner's... Heero's... short and a bit spiky. However, from there on they looked nearly identical.
Same shape of the face, same noses, eyes, even the eye color. Rowan could feel the goose bumps beginning to form on his skin. For some odd reason, encounter with this little photo unnerved him more than conversation with a ghost. The ghost.... Somehow Rowan was sure the ghost was that second boy in the picture, Heero; the one that Duo had his arm around in a jokingly possessive gesture.
Rowan sat there for a long time, gazing at the old photo, trying to decipher the nature of the relationship between the two. Somehow it was very important that he figure it out. Eventually Rowan gave up and got up shakily. He felt incredibly exhausted, emotionally as well as physically.
By now it was way past midnight, more like 3am. The boy decided that some sleep was in order and headed upstairs, toward his bedroom. He was just about ready to crawl into bed when it started. First, he felt like he was immersed under water... a sensation of utter unreality, as if he had been detached from his body and was watching the events from above.
Then Rowan was transported into a different world.
End of Part 7
So, how was it? C&C? Flames?
(:./murasaki/second7)
